The 

Columbia River 

Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery 
Its Commerce 



By 

William Denison Lyman 

Professor of History in Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington 



With 80 Illustrations and a Map 



Third Edition. Revised and Enlarged 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York and London 
XTbe Iknicherbocker ipress 

1918 



rss's 



Copyright, 1909 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



Copyright, 1918 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

(Third Edition) 



APR 23 1918 



■' tCbe 1Rn(cftcrbocl!er press, •Wcw JJotH 

©Ci.A497023 



/ 



^^9 






TO MY PARENTS 

Horace Lyman and Mary Denison Lyman 

PIONEERS OF 1849, WHO BORE THEIR PART IN LAYING THE 

FOUNDATIONS OF CIVILIZATION UPON THE BANKS OF 

THE COLUMBIA, THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED 

BY THE AUTHOR 



I see the living tide roll on, 

It crowns with flaming towers 

The icy capes of Labrador, 

The Spaniard's land of flowers; 

It streams beyond the splintered ridge 

That parts the northern showers. 

From eastern rock to sunset wave. 

The Continent is ours. 

Holmes. 



PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION 

THE kindly reception accorded to this book, by 
which all of the first edition and nearly all of the 
second have passed into the hands' of readers, 
has led author and publishers to believe that there is 
such a continuing demand as to justify a new edition. 

There are relatively few changes. Such errors as 
appeared in the earlier editions have been corrected, so 
far as discovered. A few paragraphs have been re- 
written. 

The new features will be found to embody develop- 
ments on and in connection with the River since the 
first publication. 

The chief additional points of interest are: the com- 
pletion of the Celilo Canal; the continuance of the 
jetties at the River mouth and sj^stematic dredging by 
which a depth of forty feet at low tide has been secured ; 
the inauguration of an era of ship-building during the 
present year; and, most interesting of all to the general 
public, the Columbia Scenic Highway, one of the 
noblest works of the kind in the world. 

These interesting improvements make the wonders 
of the Columbia more available to the tourist, but the 
great features, — the lakes, the rapids, the snow-peaks, 
the cliffs, the waterfalls, the solemn forests, — these all 
exist as in Creation's dawn, and the human works are, 
after all, merely accessory. 



viii Preface to Third Edition 

With a view to a wider representation of certain 
localities worthy of illustration, as well as presenting 
graphically these new features of human construction, 
there is a little change in pictorial matter. 

With the belief that the presentation of both the new 
and the old, both the works of nature and of man upon 
the great River, will find increasing interest and support, 
this third edition is submitted to the reading public. 



W. D. L. 



Walla Walla, Wash., 
September 1, 1916, 



PREFACE 

AS one of the American Waterways series, this 
volume is designed to be a history and descrip- 
tion of the Columbia River. The author has 
sought to convey to his reader a lively sense of the 
romance, the heroism, and the adventure which belong 
to this great stream and the parts of the North-west 
about it, and he has aimed to breathe into his narrative 
something of the spirit and sentiment — a spirit and sen- 
timent more easily recognised than analysed — which we 
call "Western." With this end in view, his treatment of 
the subject has been general rather than detailed, and 
popular rather than recondite. While he has spared no 
pains to secure historical accuracy, he has not made it a 
leading aim to settle controverted points, or to pre- 
sent the minutiae of historical research and criticism. 
In short, the book is rather for the general reader 
than for the specialist. The author hopes so to im- 
press his readers with the majesty of the Columbia as 
to fill their minds with a longing to see it face to face. 
Frequent reference in the body of the book to 
authorities renders it unnecessary to name them here. 
Suffice it to say that the author has consulted the 
standard works of history and description dealing with 
Oregon — the old Oregon — and its River, and from the 
voluminous matter there gathered has selected the facts 
that best combine to make a connected and picturesque 



X Preface 

narrative. He has treated the subject topically, but 
there is a general progression throughout, and the en- 
deavour has been to find a natural jointure of chapter 
to chapter and era to era. 

While the book has necessarily been based largely 
on other books, it may be said that the author has 
derived his chief inspiration from his own observations 
along the shores of the River and amid the mountains 
of Oregon and Washington, where his life has mainly 
been spent, and from familiar conversations in the 
cabins of pioneers, or at camp-fires of hunters, or 
around Indian tepees, or in the pilot-houses of steam- 
boats. In such ways and places one can best catch the 
spirit of the River and its history. 

The author gladly takes this opportunity of making 
his grateful acknowledgments to Prof. F. G. Young, 
of Oregon University, for his kindness in reading the 
manuscript and in making suggestions which his full 
knowledge and ripe judgment render especially valua- 
ble. He wishes also to express his warmest thanks to 
Mr. Harvey W. Scott, editor of the Oregoniafij for 
invaluable counsel. Similar gratitude is due to Prof. 
Henry Landes of Washington University for import- 
ant assistance in regard to some of the scientific 
features of the first chapter. 

W. D. L, 

Whitman College, 

Walla Walla, Wash., 

1909. 



CONTENTS 

PART I.— THE HISTORY 
CHAPTER I 

PAGB 

The Land where the River Flows .... 3 

CHAPTER II 
Tales op the First White Men along the Coast . 33 

CHAPTER III 

How All Nations Sought the River from the Sea 

and how they Found it 43 

CHAPTER IV 

First Steps across the Wilderness in Search of 

the River 69 

CHAPTER V 
The Fur-Traders, their Bateaux, and their Stations 98 

CHAPTER VI 

The Coming of the Missionaries to the Tribes of 

the River 136 

xi 



xii Contents 

CHAPTER VII 



PAGB 



The Era of the Pioneers, their Ox-Teams, and their 

Flatboats 159 

CHAPTER VIII 
Conflict of Nations for Possession of the River . 179 

CHAPTER IX 
The Times op Tomahawk and Firebrand . . . 202 

CHAPTER X 

When the " Fire-Canoes " Took the Place of the 

Log-Canoes 234 

CHAPTER XI 

Era of the Miner, the Cowboy, the Farmer, the 

Boomer, and the Railroad-Builder . . . 249 

CHAPTER XII 

The Present Age of Expansion and World Com- 
merce 265 

CHAPTER XIII 

New Channels and New Highways .... 270 

PART II.— A journey" DOWN THE RIVER 

CHAPTER I 

In the Heart of the Canadian Rockies . . . 283 



Contents xiii 

CHAPTER II 

PAGB 

The Lakes from the Arrow Lakes to Chelan . 300 

CHAPTER III 
In the Land of Wheat-Field, Orchard, and Garden . 323 

CHAPTER IV 

Where River and Mountain Meet, and the Traces 

OF the Bridge of the Gods 342 

CHAPTER V 
On Volcano and Glacier 362 

CHAPTER VI 
The Lower River and the Ocean Tides . . . 384 

Index 409 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

St. Peter's Dome, Columbia River, 2300 Feet High 

Frontispiece ^ 
Copyright, Kiser Photograph Co., 1902. 

In the Heart of the Cascade Mountains^ above Lake 

Chelan^ Wash 12 

Photo, by T. W. Tolman, Spokane. 

The Lyman Glacier and Glacier Lake in North Star 

Park_, near Lake Chelan 14 ^ 

Photo, by W. D. Lyman. 

Stehekin Canon^ 5000 Feet Deep 16 

Photo, by W. D. Lyman. 

Cayuse Babies — 1 18 

Copyright by Lee Moorehouse, 1898. 

Cayuse Babies — 2 18 

Copyright by Lee Moorehouse, 1898. 

Witch's Head, near Old Wishram Village. The 
Indian Superstition is that these Eyes will 
Follow any Unfaithful Woman .... 30 
By courtesy of Lee Moorehouse. 

Saddle Mountain or Swallalochost, near Astoria, 

Famous in Indian Myth 34 

Photo, by Woodfield. 

Captain Robert Gray and the " Columbia Rediviva " 64 v/ 

Tirzah TrasK;, a Umatilla Indian Girl — Taken as 

an Ideal of Sacajawea 78 

Photo, by Lee Moorehouse, Pendleton. 



xvi Illustrations 

PAGE 

Grand Dalles of the Columbia 82 ^ 

Cabbage Rock, Four Miles North of The Dalles . 84 / 

Photo, by Lee Moorehouse, Pendleton. 

Fort Vancouver in 1845 128 ' 

Astoria in 1845 134 ' 

From an old print. 

Astoria, Looking up and across the Columbia River . 134 
Photo, by Woodfield. 

Shoshone Falls, in Snake River, 212 Feet High . 152 
Photo, by W. D. Lyman. 

Oregon City in 1845 176 

From an old print. 

An Oregon Pioneer in his Cabin 178 

Photo, by E. H. Moorehouse. 

Grave op Marcus Whitman and his Associate Martyrs 

AT Waiilatpu 210 

Photo, by W. D. Chapman. 

Whitman Memorial Building, Whitman College, 

Walla Walla, Wash 212 

Photo, by W. D. Chapman. 

Fort Sheridan on the Grande Ronde, Built by Philip 

Sheridan in 1855 222, 

By courtesy of Lee Moorehouse. 

TuLLUx Holliquilla, a Warm Springs Indian Chief, 
Famous in the Modoc War as a Scout for U. S. 

Troops 228, 

By courtesy of Lee Moorehouse. 

Hallakallakeen (Eagle Wing), or Joseph, the Nez 

Perce Chief 230 

By T. W. Tolman. 



Illustrations xvii 

PAGE 

Chief Joseph's Camp on the Nespilem, Wash. . . 232 
Photo, by T. W. Tolman, Spokane. 

Steamer " Beaver," the First Steamer on the Pacific, 

1836 234- 

Old Portage Railroad at Cascades in 1860 . . . 238 • 

Water Front at Lewiston with Steamers from Ocean 

TO Attend Opening of Celilo Canal . . . 246 

Portland^ Oregon, in 1851 252 

From an old print. 

A Logging Railroad, near Astoria 264 • 

Photo, by Woodfield. 

Natural Bridge, Kicking Horse or Wapta River and 

Mt. Stephen, B. C 286 

Photo, by C. F. Yates. 

One of the Lagoons of the Upper Columbia River, 

near Golden, B. C, 2SS 

Photo, by E. F. Yates, Golden. 

Birch Tree Channel, Upper Columbia, near Golden, 

B. C 290 

Photo, by C. F. Yates, Golden. 

Lake Windermere, Upper Columbia, where David 

Thompson's Fort was Built in 1810 . . , 292 
Photo, by W. D. Lyman. 

Lake Adela, near Head of Columbia River, B. C. . 294 

Photo, by C. F. Yates. 

Fish River Road in Upper Columbia Region, B. C. . 298 

Photo, by Trueman, Victoria. 

Bonnington Falls in Kootenai River, near Nelson . 302' 

Photo, by Allan Lean, Nelson. 

How they Irrigate an Orchard in Wenatchee Valley 304 



xviii Illustrations 



PAGE 



Lake Pend Oreille^ Idaho 306 

Photo, by T. W. Tolman. 

Lake Coeur d^Albnb^ Idaho 306 

Photo, by T. W. Tolman. 

The " Shadowy St. Joe/' Idaho 308 ' 

Photo, by T. W. Tolman. 

On the Coeur d'Alenb River_, Idaho . . . .310 
Photo, by T. W. Tolman. 

Gorge of Chelan River^ the Outlet of Lake Chelan . 312 ^ 
Photo, by T. W. Tolman, Spokane. 

Head of Lake Chelan, Looking up Stehekin Canon . 314 

Photo, by W. D. Lyman. , 

Cascade Pass at Head of Stehekin River, Wash. . 316 
Photo, by T. W. Tolman, Spokane. 

Packing Apples at Wenatchee, " The Home of the Big 

Red Apple " 318 

Horseshoe Basin through a Rock Gap, Stehekin 

Canon 320 

Photo, by T. W. Tolman. 

Lake Chelan 322 

Photo, by W. D. Lyman. 

Spokane Falls and City, 1886 ..... 324 
Photo, by T. W. Tolman, Spokane. 

Spokane Falls and City, 1908 324 

Photo, by T. W. Tolman. 

Inland Empire System's Power Plant, near Spokane, 

20,000 Horse-Power 326 

Photo, by T. W. Tolman. 

Lower Spokane Falls . 326 

Photo, by T. W. Tolman. 



Illustrations xix 



PAGE 



Eagle Rock, just above Shoshone Falls in Snake 

River 328 

Photo, by W. D. Lyman. 

A Harvest Outfit, Dayton, Washington . . . 330 

Sunset Magazine. 

A Combined Harvester_, near Walla Walla, Wash. 330 
Photo, by W. D. Chapman. 

Part of the Orchard Tract Adjoining Wenatchee . 332 

Starting the Ploughs in the Wheat Land, Walla 

Walla, Wash 334 

Photo, by W. D. Chapman, Walla Walla. 

Blalock Fruit Ranch of a Thousand Acres, at 

Walla Walla, Wash 335 

Photo, by W. D. Chapman. 

Band of Elk on W. P. Reser^s Ranch, Walla Walla, 

Wash 333 

Photo, by W. D. Chapman. 

Hunters on Lake Chelan, with their Spoils . . 340 
Photo, by W. D. Lyman. 

A MoRNiNG^s Catch on the Touchet_, near Dayton, 

Washington 34q 

Sunset Magazine. 

Memaloose Island, in the Columbia River . . . 345 
Photo, by E. H. Moorehouse. 

On the Banks of the Columbia River, near Hood 

River 348 

Photo, by E. H. Moorehouse. 

Fish-Wheel near The Dalles 352 

Castle Rock, Columbia River , . ... . 354 

Copyright, Kiser Photograph Co., 1902. 

Oneonta Gorge — Looking in 356 

Photo, by E, H. Moorehouse. 



XX Illustrations 



PAGE 



Multnomah Falls, 607 Feet High, on South Side of 

Columbia River 358 

Photo, by E. H. Moorehouse. 

Cape Horn^ Columbia River — Looking up . . . 360 
Photo, by E. H. Moorehouse, Portland. 

Bridal Veil Falls^ on the Columbia River . . . 362 
Photo, by E. H, Moorehouse. 

Lone Rock_, Columbia River^ about Forty Miles from 

Portland 364/ 

Photo, by E. H. Moorehouse, Portland. 

Mt. Hood_, from Lost Lake 366 

Photo, by E. H. Moorehouse. 

Eliot Glacier, Mt. Hood 368 

Photo, by E. H. Moorehouse. 

Mt. Adams, from the South 370 

Photo, by W. D. Lyman. 

Mazamas Starting Ascent of Mt. Adams . . . 372 

A Typical Mountain Meadov^^, Stehekin Valley, Wash. 376 

Photo, by T. W. Tolman. 
Bridal Veil Bluff^ Columbia River .... 378 
Photo, by E. H. Moorehouse, Portland. 

Rooster Rock^ Columbia River 380 

Photo, by E. H. Moorehouse, Portland. 

Looking up the Columbia River from the Cliff above 

Multnomah Falls 382 

Copyright, Kiser Photograph Co., 1902. 

Sunrise on Columbia River^ near Washougal . . 384 / 
Copyright, Kiser Photograph Co., 1902. 

Willamette Falls, Oregon City_, .... 386 
Photo, by E. H. Moorehouse. 

Portland Harbour, 388 

Photo, by E. H. Moorehouse, Portland. 



Illustrations xxi 

PAGE 

Portland in 1908. Mt. St. Helens Sixty-Five Miles 

Distant 390 

A Log-Boom down the River for San Francisco . . 396 ^ 
Photo, by Woodfield. 

Chinook Salmon^ Weight 80 Pounds .... 398 
Photo, by Woodfield, Astoria. 

Among the Big Spruce Trees^ near Astoria, Oregon 400, 
Photo, by Woodfield, Astoria. 

The Fishing Fleet Coming up the River . . . 404 

Sunset at the Riveras Mouth 408 

Maps At End 



PART I 
The History 



CHAPTER I 
The Land where the River Flows 

Contrasts — The Two Islands — Uplift — Volcanic Action — Flood — Age 
of Ice — Story of Wishpoosh and Creation of the Tribes — Outline 
of the Mountain Systems — Peculiar Interlocking of the Columbia 
and the Kootenai — The Cascade Range — The Inland Empire — The 
Valleys West of the Cascade Mountains— The Forests— The Cli- 
mate — The Native Races and Some of their Myths — Story of the 
Kamiah Monster — The Tomanowas Bridge at the Cascades — ■ 
Origin of Three Great Mountains — The Chinook Wind — Myths 
of the Unseen Life — Klickitat Story of the Spirit Baby — Beauty 
of the Native Names. 

WONDERFULLY varied though rivers are, 
each has a physiognomy of its own. Each 
preserves its characteristics even in the midst 
of constant diversity. We recognise it, as we recog- 
nise a person in different changes of dress. The Ohio 
has one face, the Hudson another, and each keeps its 
essential identity. The traveller would not confuse 
the Rhine with the Danube, or the Nile with the 
Volga. 

Even more distinctive than most rivers in form 
and feature is the Columbia, the old Oregon that 
now hears far other sounds than " his own dashings," 
the River of the West, the Thegayo, the Rio de y 
los Reyes, the Rio Estrachos, the Rio de Aguilar, 
the many-named river which unites all parts of the 
Pacific North-west. It is to its records of romance 



4 The Columbia River 

and heroism, of legend and history, as well as 
to its alternating scenes of stormy grandeur and tran- 
quil majesty that the reader's attention is now in- 
vited. Though among the latest of American rivers 
to be brought under the control of civilised men, the 
Columbia was among the earliest to attract the in- 
terest of the explorers of all nations, and the struggles 
of international diplomacy over possession were among 
the most momentous in history. The distance of the 
Columbia from the centres of population and the diffi- 
culty of reaching it made its development slow, and for 
this reason its pioneer stage lasted longer than would 
otherwise have been the case. In this part of its his- 
tory there was a record of pathos, tragedy, and achieve- 
ment not surpassed in any of the annals of our country, 
while, in its later phases, the North-west has had the 
sweep and energy of growth and power characteristic 
of genuine American development. Finally, by reason 
of scenic grandeur, absorbing interest of physical fea- 
tures, the majesty and mystery of its origin in the 
greatest of American mountains, the swift might of its 
flow through some of the wildest as well as some of 
the most beautiful regions of the globe, and at the last 
by the peculiar grandeur of its entrance into the great- 
est of the oceans, this "Achilles of Rivers " attracts 
alike historian, scientist, poet, statesman, and lover of 
nature. 

" A land of old upheaven from the abyss," a land 
of deepest deeps and highest heights, of richest ver- 
dure here, and barest desolation there, of dense forest 
on one side, and wide extended prairies on the other; 
a land, in brief, of contrasts, contrasts in contour, hues. 



The Land where the River Flows 5 

productions, and history ; — such is that imperial domain 
watered hy the Columbia River and its affluents. To 
the artist, the poet, the scientist, and the sportsman, 
this region presents noble and varied scenes of shore, 
of mountain, of river, of lake, while to the romancer 
and historian it offers a wealth of native legend and of 
record from the heroic ages of American history. 

As a fit introduction to the picture of the land as 
it now appears, there may be presented a brief record 
of the manner in which it was wrought into its present 
form. Professor Thomas Condon of Oregon thought 
that the first land to rise on the Pacific Coast was 
composed of two islands, one in the region of the 
Siskiyou Mountains of Northern California and South- 
ern Oregon, and the other in the heart of what are 
now the Blue JNIountains and Saw-tooth Mountains of 
North-eastern Oregon, South-eastern Washington, and 
Western Idaho. Other geologists have doubted the 
existence of the second of these two islands. 

Those islands, if both existed, were the nuclei of the 
Pacific Coast region. The rock consisted of the earlier 
granite, sandstone, and limestone crust of the earth. 
For long ages these two islands, washed by the warm 
seas of that early age, and bearing a life now found 
in the tropics, were slowly rising and widening their 
boundaries in all directions. 

Next, or perhaps as early, to respond to the pressure 
of the shrinking crust of the earth and to appear above 
the sea, was the vast cordon of pinnacled peaks which 
compose the present Okanogan and Chelan uplift, 
granite and porphyry, broken by volcanic outflow. 
These peaks are veined with gold, silver, and 
copper. 



6 The Columbia River 

That first age of mountain uphft was ended by the 
coming on of the age of fire. The granite upheaval 
of the Blue and the Cascade Mountains was blown 
apart and cracked asunder by volcanic eruption and 
seismic force. A vast outflow of basalt and andesite 
swept westward from the Blue Mountains to meet a 
similar outflow moving eastward from the Cascades. 
Thus, throughout the Columbia Basin, the surface is 
mainly of volcanic rock overlying the shattered frag- 
ments of the original earth crust. At many points, 
however, the primeval granite or sandstone surface was 
not covered, while at frequent intervals the breaking 
forth of the fiery floods transformed those original 
rocks into various forms of gneiss, porphyry, and 
marble. But the greatest result of the age of vol- 
canic outflow was the elevation of the stupendous iso- 
lated snow peaks which now constitute so strildng a 
feature of Columbian landscapes. 

With the close of the age of fire, the mountain 
chains were in place, as they now stand, but the plains 
and valleys were not yet fashioned. Another series 
of forces must needs come to elaborate the rude out- 
lines of the land. And so came on the third great age, 
the age of flood. The upheaval of the mingled granite 
and volcanic masses of the Cascade and Blue Moun- 
tains, while at the same time the Rockies were under- 
going the same process, imprisoned a vast sea over the 
region now known by Westerners as the Inland Empire. 
In the depths of this sea the sediment from a thou- 
sand torrents was deposited to fashion the smooth and 
level valleys of the Yakima, the Walla Walla, the 
Spokane, and lesser streams, while a similar process 
fashioned the valleys of the Willamette and other 



The Land where the River Flows 7 

streams between the Cascades and the Coast Mountains 
westward. 

But while the age of flood was shaping the great 
valley systems, a fourth age — the age of ice — was 
working still other changes upon the plastic land. The 
mountains had been reared by upheaval and volcanic 
outflow to a stupendous height. Then they became 
glaciated. The whole Northern Hemisphere, in fact, 
took on the character of the present Greenland. 
Enormous glaciers descended the flanks of the moun- 
tains, gouging and ploughing out the abysmal canons 
which now awe the beholder, and scooping out the 
deeps where Chelan, Coeur d'Alene, Pend Oreille, 
Kaniksu, and other great lakes delight the vision of 
the present day. 

Such were the forces that wrought the physical 
features of the land where the River flows. We do 
not mean to convey the impression that there was a 
single age of each, and that they followed each other 
in regular chronological order. As a matter of fact 
there were several eras of each, interlocked with each 
other: upheaval, fire, flood, and frost. But as the 
resultant of all, the Columbia Basin assumed its 
present form. The great forces which have thus fash- 
ioned this land manifested themselves on a scale of 
vast energy. Evidences of upheaval, fire, flood, and 
glacier are exhibited on every side, and these evidences 
constitute a testimony of geological history of the 
most interesting nature. Long before this record of 
the rocks had found a white reader, the native red 
man had read the open pages, and interpreted them 
in the light of his ardent fancy. 

The Indian conception of the flood, involving also 



8 The Columbia River 

that of the creation of the native tribes, is one of the 
most fantastic native legends. This is the story of the 
great beaver, Wishpoosh, of Lake Kichelos. Accord- 
ing to this myth the beaver Wishpoosh inhabited that 
lake on the summit of the Cascade Mountains, the 
source of the Yakima River. 

In the time of the Watetash (animal people) be- 
fore the advent of men, the king beaver, Wishpoosh, 
of enormous size and voracious appetite, was in the 
evil habit of seizing and devouring the lesser creatures 
and even the vegetation. So destructive did he be- 
come that Si)eelyei, the coyote god of the mid-Columbia 
region, undertook to check his rapacities. 

The struggle only made the monster more insatiate, 
and in his wrath he tore out the banks of the lake. 
The gathered floods swept on down the canon and 
formed another great lake in the region now known 
as the Kittitas Valley. 

But the struggle between Wishpoosh and Speelyei 
did not end, and the former in his mad fury went on 
thrashing around in this greater lake. For a long 
time the rocky barriers of the Umtanum restrained 
the flood, but at last they gave way before the on- 
slaughts of the wrathful beaver, and the loosened waters 
swept on down and filled the great basin now occupied 
by the fruit and garden ranches of the Cowiche, 
Natchees, and Atahnum. In like fashion the restrain- 
ing wall at the gap just below Yakima city was torn 
out, and a yet greater lake was formed over all the 
space where we now see the level plains of the Sim- 
coe and Toppenish. The next lake formed in the pro- 
cess covered the yet vaster region at the juncture of 
the Yakima, Snake and Columbia rivers. For a long 



The Land where the River Flows 9 

time it was dammed in by the Umatilla highlands, but 
in process of time it, too, was drained by the bursting 
of the rocky wall before the well-directed attacks of 
Wishpoosh. The yet greater lake, the greatest of all, 
now formed between the Umatilla on the east and the 
Cascade JMountains on the west. But even the towering 
wall of the Cascades gave way in time and the accumu- 
lated floods poured on without further hindrance to 
the open sea. 

Thus was the series of great lakes drained, the 
level valleys left, and the Great River suffered to flow 
in its present course. But there is a sequel to the 
story of the flood. For Wishpoosh, being now in the 
ocean, laid about him with such fury that he devoured 
the fish and whales and so threatened all creation that 
Speelyei perceived that the time had come to end it all. 
Transforming himself into a floating branch, he drifted 
to Wishpoosh and was swallowed. Once inside the mon- 
ster, the wily god resumed his proper size and power; 
and with his keen-edged knife proceeded to cut the vitals 
of the belligerent beaver, until at last all life ceased, 
and the huge carcass w^as cast up by the tide on Clat- 
sop beach, just south of the mouth of the Great River. 
And now what to do with the carcass ? Speelyei solved 
the problem by cutting it up and from its different parts 
fashioning the tribes as each part was adapted. From 
the head he made the Nez Perces, great in council and 
oratory. From the arms came the Cayuses, powerful 
with the bow and war-club. The Klickitats were the 
product of the legs, and they were the runners of the 
land. The belly was transformed into the gluttonous 
Chinooks. At the last there was left an indiscrim- 
inate mass of hair and gore. This Speelyei hurled up 



lo The Columbia River 

the far distance to the east, and out of it sprung the 
Snake River Indians. 

Such is the native physiography and anthropogene- 
sis of the land of the Oregon. 

If now one could rise on the pinions of the Chinook 
wind (the warm south wind of the Columbia Basin, 
of which more anon) , and from the southern springs 
of the Owyhee and the Malheur could wing his way 
to the snowy peaks in British Columbia, from whose 
fastnesses there issues the foaming torrent of Canoe 
River, the most northerly of all the tributaries of the 
Great River, he would obtain, in a noble panorama, 
a view of the land where the River flows, in its present 
aspect, as fashioned by the elemental forces of which 
we have spoken. But not to many is it given thus to 
be " horsed on the sightless couriers of the air," and 
we must needs use imagination in lieu of them. Even 
a map will be the safest guide for most. Inspection 
of the map will show that the distance to which we 
have referred covers twelve degrees of latitude, while 
the distance from the source of the Snake River in 
the Yellowstone National Park to the Pacific requires 
a span of fifteen degrees of longitude. The south- 
eastern part of this vast area occup3dng Southern 
Idaho is mainly an arid plain; arid, indeed, in its 
natural condition, but, when touched by the vivifying 
waters in union with the ardent sun, it blossoms like 
a garden of the Lord. Upon these vast plains where 
the volcanic dust has drifted for ages, now looking 
so dismal in their monotonous garb of sage-brush, the 
millions of the future will some time live in peace and 
plenty, each under his own vine and apple-tree. On 
the eastern boundary, all the way from Western 



The Land where the River Flows 1 1 

Wyoming to Eastern British Columbia, stand cordons 
of stupendous mountains, the western outposts of the 
great Continental Divide. These constitute one spur 
after another, from whose profound canons issues river 
after river to swell the torrents of the turbid and impetu- 
ous Snake on its thousand-mile journey to join the 
Columbia. Among these tributary streams are the 
Payette, the Boise, the Salmon, and the Clearwater. 
Yet farther north, beyond the system of the Snake, 
are the Bitter Root, the INIissoula, the Pend Oreille, 
the Spokane, and the Kootenai (we follow here the 
American spelling, the Canadian being Kootenay), 
with almost innumerable affluents, draining the huge 
labyrinths of the Bitter Root Mountains and the 
Silver Bow. 

Thus our northward flight carries us to the inter- 
national boundary in latitude 49 degrees. 

Far beyond that parallel stretches chain after chain 
of divisions of the great Continental Range, the Sel- 
kirks, the Gold Range, Purcell's Range, sky-piercing 
heights, snow-clad and glaciated. Up and down these 
interlocking chains the Columbia and the Kootenai, 
with their great lakes and unexplored tributaries, seem 
to be playing at hide-and-seek with each other. These 
rivers form here one of the most singular geographical 
phenomena of the world, for so strangely are the 
parallel chains of mountains tilted that the Kootenai, 
rising in a small lake on the western flank of the main 
chain of the Canadian Rockies and flowing south, 
passes within a mile of the source of the Columbia at 
Columbia Lake, separated only by a nearly level 
valley. Connection, in fact, is so easy that a canal 
once joined the two rivers. From that point of con- 



12 The Columbia River 

tact the Kootenai flows far south into Idaho, then 
makes a grand wheel to the north-west, forming Koote- 
nai Lake on the way, then wheeling again in its tor- 
tuous course to the west, it joins the greater stream in 
the midst of the majestic mountain chains which stand 
guard over the Arrow Lakes. And meanwhile where 
has the Columbia itself been journeying? After the 
parting from the Kootenai it flows directly north- 
west between two stupendous chains of mountains. 
Reaching its highest northern point in latitude 52 de- 
grees, where it receives the Canoe River, which has 
come two hundred miles or more from the north, it 
turns sharply westward, finding a passageway cleft in 
the mountain wall. Thence making a grand wheel 
toward the south, it casts its turbid floods into the long 
expanse of the Arrow Lakes, from which it emerges, 
clear and bright, soon to join the Kootenai. And how 
far have they journeyed since they parted? The 
Columbia about six hundred miles, and the Kootenai 
hardly less, though having passed within a mile of 
each other, flowing in opposite directions. 

It will be readily seen from this description that the 
mountains which feed the Columbian system of rivers on 
the east and north, are of singular grandeur and interest. 
But now as we bear our way southward again we dis- 
cover that another mountain system, yet grander and 
of more curious interest, forms the western boundary of 
the upper Columbia Basin. This is the Cascade Range. 
Sublime, majestic, mysterious, this noble chain of 
mountains, with its tiaras of ice, its girdles of water- 
falls, its draperies of forest, its jewels of lakes, must 
make one search long to find its parallel in any land 
for all the general features of mountain charm. But 




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The Land where the River Flows 13 

over and beyond those more usual delights of the 
mountains, the Cascade Range has a unique feature, 
one in which it stands unrivalled among all the moun- 
tains of the earth, with the exception possibly of the 
Andes. This is the feature of the great isolated snow 
peaks, stationed like sentinels at intervals of from 
thirty to sixty miles all the way from the British line 
to California. There is nothing like this elsewhere on 
the North American continent. The Sierras of Cali- 
fornia are sublime, but their great peaks are not iso- 
lated monarchs like those of the Cascades. The high 
Sierras are blended together in one mountain wall, in 
which no single peak dominates any wide extended 
space. But in the long array of the Cascades, five 
hundred miles and more from the international boun- 
dary to the California line, one glorious peak after 
another uplifts the banner and sets its regal crown 
toward sunrise or sunset, king of earth and air to the 
border where the shadow of the next mountain mon- 
arch mingles with its own. Hence these great Cas- 
cade peaks have an individuality which gives them a 
kind of living personality in the life of any one 
who has lived for any length of time within sight 
of them. 

From the north, moving south, we might gaze at 
these great peaks, and find no two alike. Baker — how 
much finer is the native name, Kulshan, the Great White 
Watcher — first on the north; Shuksan next, the place 
where the storm- winds gather, in the native tongue; 
then Glacier Peak, with its girdle of ice, thirteen great 
glaciers; Stewart next with its dizzy horn of rock set 
in a field of snow; then the great king-peak of all, 
Rainier, better named by the natives, Takhoma, the 



14 The Columbia River 

fountain breast of milk-white waters; and after this, 
Adams, or in the Indian, Klickitat, with St. Helens 
or Loowit near at hand on the west; then, across the 
Great River, Hood or Wiyeast, with its pinnacled 
crest; next southward, Jefferson with its sharp chim- 
ney whose top was long thought unattainable; yet be- 
yond, the marvellous group of the Three Sisters, each 
with its separate personality and yet all together com- 
bining in one superb whole; then Mt. Scott, Mt. Thiel- 
son. Diamond Peak, Mt. Pitt (now officially called 
Mt. McLoughlin), and with them we might well in- 
clude the truncated cone of Mt. Mazama, once the 
lordliest of the chain, but, by some mighty convulsion 
of nature, shorn of crown and head, and now bearing 
on its summit instead the most singular body of water, 
Crater Lake, on all the American continent. 

Fifteen is the number of the great peaks named, 
but there are dozens of lesser heights, snow-crowned 
and regal. The great Cascade chain is, therefore, the 
noblest and most significant feature of the topography 
of the land of the Columbia. Between the Rocky 
Mountains and the Cascades lies what is locally known 
as the Inland Empire, mainly a continuous prairie or 
series of prairies and valleys, wheat land, orchard land, 
garden land, fertile, beautiful, attractive, broken by an 
occasional mountain spur, as the irregular mass of the 
Blue Mountains, but substantially an inhabited land, 
reaching from Colville, Spokane, and the Okanogan 
on the north to the Klamath valleys on the south, a 
region five hundred miles long by two hundred wide. 

Such are the distinguishing features of the Colum- 
bia Basin on the east side of the Cascade Moun- 
tains. 




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The Land where the River Flows 15 

To the west of those mountains is another vast 
expanse of interior valleys, not so large indeed and 
not more fertile, but even more beautiful, and by- 
reason of earlier settlement and contiguity to the ocean, 
better developed. 

This series of valleys is enclosed between the Cas- 
cade Mountains and the Coast Range, and in a general 
way parallels the Inland Empire already described. 
But this statement should be qualified by the explanation 
that North-western Washington consists of the Puget 
Sound Basin, which is a distinct geographical system, 
while South-western Oregon consists of the Umpqua 
and Rogue River valleys, and these valleys though 
commercially and politically a part of the Columbia 
system, are geographically separate, since they debouch 
directly into the Pacific Ocean. There is left, there- 
fore, for the Columbia region proper west of the Cas- 
cade Mountains, the Willamette Valley in Oregon, and 
the valleys of the Lewis, Kalama, and Cowlitz in 
Washington, with several smaller valleys on each side. 
The Willamette Valley is the great distinguishing 
feature of this part of the Columbia Basin. A more 
attractive region is hard to find. Mountains snow- 
clad and majestic, the great peaks of the Cascades 
already described, guard it on the east, while west- 
ward the gentler slopes of the Coast Range separate 
it from the sea. Between the two ranges lies the 
valley, two hundred miles long by about a hundred 
broad, including the foot-hills, a succession of level 
plains, oak-crowned hills, and fertile bottoms. Not 
Greece nor Italy nor the Vale of Cashmere can sur- 
pass this earthly paradise in all the features that 
compose the beautiful and grand in nature. 



i6 The Columbia River 

Geologists tell us that this Willamette region was 
once a counterpart of Puget Sound, only with less 
depth of water, and that, as the result of centuries of 
change, the old-time Willamette Sound has become 
the Willamette Valley. It has now become the most 
thickly settled farming region of the Columbia Basin, 
and, as its fitting metropolis, Portland sits at the gate- 
way of the Willamette and Columbia, the " Rose City," 
handsomest of all Western cities, to welcome the 
commerce of the world. 

The valleys on the Washington side of the Colum- 
bia make up together a region of great beauty, fer- 
tility, and productiveness, perhaps a hundred miles 
square, and, though yet but partially developed, contain 
many beautiful homes. 

The larger part of the Columbia Valley west of the 
Cascade Mountains is, in its natural state, densely 
timbered. Here are found " the continuous woods 
where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound save his 
own dashings. " These great fir, spruce, cedar, and 
pine forests, extending a thousand miles along the 
Pacific Coast from Central California to the Straits 
of Fuca (and indeed they continue, though the trees 
gradually diminish in size, for nearly another thou- 
sand miles up the Alaska coast), constitute the world's 
largest timber supply. The demands upon it have 
been tremendous during the past twenty years, and 
the stately growths of centuries have vanished largely 
from all places in the near vicinity of shipping points. 
Yet one can still find primeval w^oods where the coro- 
nals of green are borne three hundred feet above the 
damp and perfumed earth, and where the pillars of the 
wood sustain so continuous a canopy of foliage that 




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The Land where the River Flows 1 7 

the sunlight is stopped or filters through only in pale 
and watery rays. Hence all manner of vines and 
shrubs grow with almost tropic profusion, though with 
weak and straggling stems. 

Throughout the entire Pacific North-west the soil 
is of extraordinary fertility. It is largely of volcanic 
dust as fine as flour and seems to contain the con- 
stituents of plant life in inexhaustible abundance. 
Even in the arid belts of Eastern Oregon, where to 
the eye of the stranger the appearance is of a hope- 
less waste, those same elements of plant food exist, 
and with water every manner of tree or vine or flower 
bursts quickly into perfect life. 

The climate of the Columbia Basin is a puzzle to 
the stranger, but in most of its aspects it quickly be- 
comes an equal delight. As is well known, the Japan 
ocean current exercises upon the Pacific Coast an 
effect similar to that of the Gulf Stream on Ireland 
and England. Hence the states of the Columbia 
Valley are much warmer in winter than regions of the 
same latitude on the Atlantic Coast or in the Missis- 
sippi Valley. Though the average temperature is 
higher, yet it is cooler in summer on the Pacific Coast 
than on the Atlantic. The Pacific climate has much 
less of extremes. The State of Washington has about 
the same isothermal line as North Carolina. There is, 
however, another feature of the Columbia climate not 
so well known to non-residents, which is worthy of a 
passing paragraph. This is the division of the coun- 
try by the Cascade IMountains into a humid western 
section and a dry eastern one. The mountain wall 
intercepts the larger part of the vapour rising from 
the Pacific and flying eastward, and these warm masses 



i8 The Columbia River 

of vapour are condensed by the icy barrier and fall in 
rain on the western side. Hence Western Oregon and 
Washington are damp and soft, with frequent clouds 
and fogs. The rainfall, though varying much, is in 
most places from forty to fifty inches a year. But 
east of the mountain wall which has " milked the 
clouds," the air is clear and bright, the sun shines most 
of the year from cloudless skies, and there seems to 
be more of tingle and electricity in the atmosphere. 
The rainfall ranges from ten to thirty inches, and in 
the drier parts vegetation does not flourish without 
irrigation. 

Any view of primeval Oregon would be incomplete 
without a glimpse of the native race, that melancholy 
people, possessed of so man}^ interesting and even 
noble traits, whose sad lot it has mainly been to struggle 
against the advent of a civilisation which they could 
not understand nor resist, and before which they have 
melted away in pitiful impotency. But they have at 
least had the highest dignity of defeat, for they have 
died fighting. They have realised the conception of 
the Roman Emperor: '^'^3Ie stantem mori oporiet'^ 

The Oregon Indians have essentially the same char- 
acteristic traits as other Indians, secretiveness, patience, 
vindictiveness, stoicism; and, in their best state, fidelity 
and boundless generosity to friends. 

The poor broken fragments of the once populous 
tribes along the Columbia can but affect the present-day 
observer with pity. Most of the tangible memorials 
of this fallen race have vanished with them. Not 
many of the conquerors have been sympathetic or even 
rational in their treatment of the Indians. Hence 
memorials of memorj?- and imagination which might 




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have been drawn from them and treasured up have 
vanished with them into the darkness. Yet many In- 
dian legends have been preserved in one manner and 
another, and these are sufficient to convince us that the 
native races are of the same nature as ourselves. Some 
of the legends which students of Indian lore have gath- 
ered, will, perhaps, prove interesting to the reader. 

A quaint Nez-Perce myth accounts for the creation 
as follows: There was during the time of the Wate- 
tash a monster living in the country of Kamiah in 
Central Idaho. This monster had the peculiar prop- 
erty of an irresistible breath, so that when it inhaled, 
the winds and grass and trees and even different ani- 
mals would be sucked into its devouring maw. The 
Coyote god, being grieved for the destruction wrought 
by this monster, made a coil of rope out of grass and 
with this went to the summit of Wallowa Mountains 
to test the suction power of the monster. Appearing 
like a tiny spear of grass upon the mountain, he blew 
a challenge to the monster. Descrying the small 
object in the distance Kamiah began to draw the air 
inward. But strange to say, Coyote did not move. 
" Ugh, that is a great medicine," said the monster. 
Coyote now took his station upon the mountains of 
the Seven Devils, a good deal closer, and blew his 
challenge again. Again the Kamiah monster tried to 
breathe so deeply as to draw the strange challenger 
into his grasp, but again he failed. " He is a very 
big medicine," he said once more. And now Coyote 
mounted the top of the Salmon River JNIountains, some- 
where near the Buffalo Hump of the present time, 
and again the monster's breath failed to draw him. 
The baffled Kamiah was now sure that this was most 



20 The Columbia River 

extraordinary medicine. In reality, Coyote had each 
time held himself by a grass rope tied to the mountain. 
Coyote now called into counsel Kotskots, the fox. 
Providing him with five knives, Kotskots advised 
Coyote to force an entrance into the interior of the 
monster. Entering in, Coyote found people in all 
stages of emaciation, evidently having had their life 
gradually sucked out of them. It was also so cold 
and dark in the interior that they were chilled into 
almost a condition of insensibility. Looking about 
him, Coyote began to see great chunks of fat and pitch 
in the vitals of the monster, and accordingly he rubbed 
sticks together and started a fire, which being fed 
with the fat and pitch, soon grew into a cheerful glow. 
Now, armed with his knives, he ascended the vast 
interior until he reached the heart. He had already 
directed Kotskots to rouse up and gather together all 
the emaciated stowaways and provide that when the mon- 
ster was cut open they should see how to rush out into 
the sunlight. Great as was the monster Kamiah, he 
could not stop the persistent hacking away at his heart 
which Coyote now entered upon. When the fifth knife 
was nearly gone, the heart dropped down and Kamiah 
collapsed into a lifeless mass. The people under the 
guidance of Kotskots, burst out into the sunshine and 
scattered themselves abroad. It must be remembered 
that these were animal people, not human. Coyote 
called upon them to wait until he should have shown 
them a last wonder, for, cutting the monster in pieces, 
he now began to fashion from the pieces a new race 
of beings to be called men. The portion which he cut 
from the head he flung northward, and of this was fash- 
ioned the Flathead tribe. The feet he cast eastward, 



The Land where the River Flows 21 

making them the Blackfeet. So he continued, making 
new tribes here and there. But at the last Kotskots 
interposed an objection. " You have made no people," 
he said, " for the valley of the Lapwai, which is the 
most beautiful of all." Realising the force of the 
suggestion. Coyote mixed the blood of the monster 
with water and sprinkled it in a rain over the entire 
valley of the Clearwater. From these drops of blood 
and water, the Nez Perce tribe was formed. The 
heart of the monster is still to be seen by all travellers 
in that country, being a heart-shaped hill in the valley 
of Kamiah. 

Perhaps the most perfect and beautiful of all In- 
dian fire myths of the Columbia, is that connected 
with the famous " tomanowas bridge " at the Cascades. 
This myth not only treats of fire, but it also endeavours 
to account for the peculiar formation of the river and 
for the great snow peaks in the near vicinity. This 
myth has various forms, and in order that it may be 
the better understood, we shall say a word with respect 
to the peculiar physical features in that part of the 
Columbia. The River, after having traversed over a 
thousand miles from its source in the heart of the great 
Rocky ]\Iountains of Canada, has cleft the Cascade 
Range asunder with a canon three thousand feet in 
depth. While generally swift, that portion between 
The Dalles and the Cascades is deep and sluggish. 
There are, moreover, sunken forests on both sides 
visible at low water, which seem plainly to indicate 
that at that point the river was dammed up by some 
great rock slide or volcanic convulsion. Some of the 
Indians affirm that their grandfathers have told them 
that there was a time when the river at that point 



2 2 The Columbia River 

passed under an immense natural bridge, and that 
there were no obstructions to the passage of boats un- 
der the bridge. At the present time there is a cas- 
cade of forty feet at that point. This is now overcome 
by government locks. Among other evidences of some 
such actual occurrence as the Indians relate, is the fact 
that the banks at that point are gradually sliding into 
the river. The prodigious volume of the Columbia, 
which here rises from fifty to seventy-five feet during 
the summer flood, is continually eating into the 
banks. The railroad has slid several inches a year at 
this point toward the river and requires frequent re- 
adjustment. It is obvious at a slight inspection that 
this weird and sublime point has been the scene of 
terrific volcanic and probably seismic action. One In- 
dian legend, probably the best known of their stories, 
is to the effect that the downfall of the bridge and 
consequent damming of the river was due to a battle 
between ]Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams, — or, some say, 
Mt. St. Helens — in which ]Mt. Hood hurled a great 
rock at his antagonist; but, falling short of the mark, 
the rock demolished the bridge instead. This event 
has been made use of by Frederick Balch in his story, 
The Bridge of the Gods. 

But the finer, though less known legend, which 
unites both the physical conformation of the Cascades 
and the three great snow mountains of Hood, Adams, 
and St. Helens, with the origin of fire, is to this effect. 
According to the Klickitats, there was once a father 
and two sons who came from the east down the Colum- 
bia to the region in which Dalles City is now located, 
and there the two sons quarrelled as to who should 
possess the land. The father, to settle the dispute. 



The Land where the River Flows 23 

shot two arrows, one to the north and one to the west. 
He told one son to find the arrow to the north and 
the other the one to the west, and there to settle and 
bring up their families. The first son, going north- 
ward, over what was then a beautiful plain, became 
the progenitor of the Klickitat tribe, while the other 
son was the founder of the great JNIultnomah nation 
of the Willamette Vallej^ To separate the two tribes 
more effectively, Sahale, the Great Spirit, reared the 
chain of the Cascades, though without anj'- great peaks, 
and for a long time all things went in harmony. But 
for convenience' sake, Sahale had created the great 
tomanowas bridge under which the waters of the 
Columbia flow^ed, and on this bridge he had stationed 
a witch woman called Loowit, who was to take charge 
of the fire. This was the only fire in the world. As 
time passed on Loowit observed the deplorable con- 
dition of the Indians, destitute of fire and the con- 
veniences which it might bring. She therefore besought 
Sahale to allow her to bestow fire upon the Indians. 
Sahale, greatly pleased by the faithfulness and bene- 
volence of Loowit, finally granted her request. The 
lot of the Indians was wonderfully improved by the ac- 
quisition of fire. They began to make better lodges and 
clothes and had a variety of food and implements, and, 
in short, were marvellously benefited by the bounteous 
gift. 

But Sahale, in order to show his appreciation of 
the care with which Loowit had guarded the sacred 
fire, now determined to offer her any gift she might 
desire as a reward. Accordingly, in response to his 
offer, Loowit asked that she be transformed into a 
young and beautiful girl. This was accordingly ef- 



24 The Columbia River 

fected, and now, as might have been expected, all the 
Indian chiefs fell deeply in love with the guardian of the 
tomanowas bridge. Loowit paid little heed to any of 
them, until finally there came two chiefs, one from the 
north called Klickitat and one from the south called 
Wiyeast. Loowit was uncertain which of these two 
she most desired, and as a result a bitter strife arose 
between the two. This waxed hotter and hotter, until, 
with their respective warriors, they entered upon a 
desperate war. The land was ravaged, all their new 
comforts were marred, and misery and wretchedness 
ensued. Sahale repented that he had allowed Loowit 
to bestow fire upon the Indians, and determined to 
undo all his work in so far as he could. Accordingly 
he broke down the tomanowas bridge, which dammed 
up the river with an impassable reef, and put to death 
Loowit, Klickitat, and Wiyeast. But, inasmuch as 
they had been noble and beautiful in life, he de- 
termined to give them a fitting commemoration after 
death. Therefore he reared over them as monuments, 
the great snow peaks; over Loowit, what we now call 
Mt. St. Helens; over Wiyeast, the modern Mt. Hood; 
and, above Klickitat, the great dome which we now 
call Mt. Adams. 

Of the miscellaneous myths which pertain to the 
forces of nature, one of the best is that accounting 
for the Chinook wind. All people who have lived long 
in Oregon or Washington have a conception of that 
marvellous warm wind which in January and February 
suddenly sends them almost summer heat amid snow 
banks and ice-locked streams, and causes all nature to 
rejoice as with a resurrection of spring time. Scarcely 
anything can be imagined in nature more picturesque 



The Land where the River Flows 25 

and dramatic than this Chinook wind. The ther- 
mometer may be down nearly to zero, a foot of snow 
may rest like a pall on the earth, or a deadly fog 
may wrap the earth, when suddenly, as if by the 
breath of inspiration, the fog parts, the peaks of the 
mountains may be seen half stripped of snow, and then, 
roaring and whistling, the warm south wind comes 
like an army. The snow begins to drip like a pressed 
sponge, the thermometer goes with a jump to sixt}^ 
and within two hours we find ourselves in the climate 
of Southern California. No wonder the Indians per- 
sonified this wind. We personify it ourselves. 

The Yakima account of the Chinook wind was to the 
effect that it was caused by five brothers who lived 
on the Columbia River, not far from the present town 
of Columbus. Now there is at rare intervals in this 
country a cold north-east wind, which the Indians on 
the lower Columbia call the Walla Walla wind be- 
cause it comes from the north-east. The cold wind 
was caused by another set of brothers. Both these 
sets of brothers had grandparents who lived near what 
is now Umatilla. The two groups of brothers were 
continually fighting each other, sweeping one way or 
the other over the country, alternately freezing or 
thawing it, blowing down trees and causing the dust 
to fly in clouds, and rendering the country generally 
very uncomfortable. Finally, the Walla Walla 
brothers sent a challenge to the Chinook brothers 
to undertake a wrestling match, the condition be- 
ing that those who were defeated should forfeit their 
lives. It was agreed that Speelyei should act as um- 
pire and should inflict the penalty by decapitating the 
losers. Speelyei secretly advised the grandparents of 



26 The Columbia River 

the Chinook brothers to throw oil on the wrestling 
ground so that their sons might not fall. In like 
manner he secretly advised the grandparents of the 
Walla Walla brothers to throw ice on the ground. Be- 
tween the ice and the oil it was so slippery that it would 
be hard for any one to keep upright, but inasmuch as 
the Walla Walla grandfather got ice on the ground 
last, the Chinook brothers were all thrown and killed. 

The eldest Chinook had an infant baby at home, 
whose mother brought him up with one sole purpose 
in view, and that was that he must avenge the death 
of his father and uncles. By continual practice in 
pulling up trees he became prodigiously strong, inso- 
much that he could pull up the largest fir trees and 
throw them about like weeds. The young man finally 
reached such a degree of strength that he felt that 
the time had come for him to perform his great mission. 
Therefore he went up the Columbia, pulling up trees and 
tossing them around in different places, and finally 
passed over into the valley of the Yakima, where he 
lay down to rest by the creek called the Setas. There 
he rested for a day and a night, and the marks of 
his couch are still plainly visible on the mountain side. 

Now, turning back again to the Columbia, he sought 
the hut of his grandparents, and when he had found it, 
he found also that they were in a most deplorable con- 
dition. The Walla Walla brothers had been having 
it all their own way during these years and had im- 
posed most shamefully upon the old people. When he 
learned this, the young Chinook told his grandfather 
to go out into the Columbia to fish for sturgeon, while 
he in the meantime would lie down in the bottom of 
the boat and watch for the Walla Walla wind. It was 



The Land where the River Flows 27 

the habit of these tormenting Walla Walla wind 
brothers to wait until the old man had got his boat 
filled with fish, and then they, issuing swiftly and 
silently from the shore, would beset and rob him. This 
time they started out from the shore as usual, but to 
their great astonishment, just as they were about to 
catch him, the boat would shoot on at miraculous speed 
and leave them far behind. So the old man landed 
safely and brought his fish to the hut. The young 
Chinook then took his grandparents to a stream and 
washed from them the filth which had gathered upon 
them during all those years of suffering. Strange to 
say, the filth became transformed into trout, and this 
is the origin of all the trout along the Columbia. 

As soon as the news became known abroad that 
there was another Chinook champion in the field, the 
Walla Walla brothers began to demand a new wrest- 
ling match. Young Chinook very gladly accepted the 
challenge, though he had to meet all five. But now 
Speelj^ei secretly suggested to the Chinook grandfather 
that he should wait about throwing the oil on the 
ground until the ice had all been used up. By means 
of this change of practice, the Walla Walla brothers 
fell speedily before the young Chinook. One after 
another was thrown and beheaded until only the young- 
est was left. His courage failing, he surrendered 
without a struggle. Speelyei then pronounced sentence 
upon him, telling him that he must live, but could 
henceforth only blow lightly, and never have power to 
freeze people to death. Speelyei also decreed that in 
order to keep Chinook within bounds he should blow 
his hardest at night time, and should blow upon the 
mountain ridges first in order to prepare people for 



28 The Columbia River 

his coming. Thus there came to be moderation in the 
winds, but Chinook was always the victor in the end. 
And thus at the present time, in the perpetual flux and 
reflux of the oceans of the air, when the north wind 
sweeps down from the chilly zones of Canada upon the 
Columbia Basin, his triumph is but transient. For 
within a few hours, or days at most, while the cattle 
are threatened with destruction and while ranchers are 
gazing anxiously about, they will discern a blue-black 
line upon the southern horizon. In a short time the 
mountain ridges can be seen bare of snow, and deliver- 
ance is at hand. For the next morning, rushing and 
roaring from the South, comes the blessed Chinook, 
and the icy grip of the North melts as before a blast 
from a furnace. The struggle is short and Chinook's 
victory is sure. 

Nearly all our native races had a more or less co- 
herent idea of a future state of rewards and punishments. 
" The happy hunting ground " of the Indians is often 
referred to in connection with the Indians of the older 
part of the United States. Our Indians have ideas in 
general quite similar. Some believe that there is a hell 
and a heaven. The Siskiyou Indians in Southern Ore- 
gon have a curious idea similar to that of the ancient 
Egyptians as well as of the JVIohammedans. This is to 
the effect that the regions of the blessed are on the 
other side of an enormously deep chasm. To pass 
over this, one must cross on a very narrow and slippery 
pole. The good can pass, but the bad fall off into 
empty space, whence they reappear again upon the 
earth as beasts or birds. 

The Klickitat Indians, living along The Dalles of 
the Columbia have a fine legend of the land of spirits. 



The Land where the River Flows 29 

There lived a young chief and a girl who were devoted 
to each other and seemed to be the happiest people in 
the tribe, but suddenly he sickened and died. The girl 
mourned for him almost to the point of death, and he, 
having reached the land of the spirits, could find no 
happiness there for thinking of her. And so it came 
to pass that a vision began to appear to the girl at 
night, telling her that she must herself go into the 
land of the spirits in order to console her lover. Now 
there is, near that place, one of the most weird 
and funereal of all the various " memaloose " islands, 
or death islands, of the Columbia. The writer him- 
self has been upon this island and its spectral and vol- 
canic desolation makes it a fitting location for ghostly 
tales. It lies just below the " great chute," and even 
yet has many skeletons upon it. In accordance with 
the directions of the vision, the girl's father made 
ready a canoe, placed her in it, and passed out into 
the Great River by night, to the memaloose island. 
As the father and his child rowed across the dark and 
forbidding waters, they began to hear the sounds of 
singing and dancing and great joy. Upon the shore 
of the island they were met by four spirit people, who 
took the girl, but bade the father return, as it was not 
for him to see into the spirit country. Accordingly 
the girl was conducted to the great dance-house of the 
spirits, and there she met her lover, far stronger and 
more beautiful than when upon earth. That night 
they spent in unspeakable bliss, but when the light 
began to break in the east and the song of the robins 
was heard from the willows on the shore, the singers 
and the dancers fell asleep. 

The girl, too, had gone to sleep, but not soundly 



so The Columbia River 

like the spirits. When the sun had reached the me- 
ridian, she woke, and now, to her horror, she saw that 
instead of being in the midst of beautiful spirits, she 
was surrounded by hideous skeletons and loathsome, 
decaying bodies. Around her waist were the bony 
arms and skeleton fingers of her lover, and his grin- 
ning teeth and gaping eye-sockets seemed to be turned 
in mockery upon her. Screaming with horror, she 
leaped up and ran to the edge of the island, where, 
after hunting a long time, she found a boat, in which 
she paddled across to the Indian village. Having 
presented herself to her astonished parents, they be- 
came fearful that some great calamity would visit the 
tribe on account of her return, and accordingly her 
father took her the next night back to the memaloose 
island as before. There she met again the happy spirits 
of the blessed, and there again her lover and she spent 
another night in ecstatic bliss. In the course of time 
a child was born to the girl, beautiful beyond descrip- 
tion, being half sjDirit and half human. The spirit 
bridegroom, being anxious that his mother should see 
the child, sent a spirit messenger to the village, de- 
siring his mother to come by night to the memaloose 
island to visit them. She was told, however, that she 
must not look at the child until ten days had passed. 
But after the old woman had reached the island, her 
desire to see the wonderful child was so intense that 
she took advantage of a moment's inattention on the 
part of the guard, and, lifting the cloth from the baby 
board, she stole a look at the sleeping infant. And 
then, dreadful to relate, the baby died in consequence 
of this premature human look. Grieved and displeased 
by this foolish act, the spirit people decreed that the 




UivVsVvV 



Witch's Head, near Old Wisliram Viilaye. TIr- 
Indian Superstition Is that these Eyes will 
Follow Any Unfaithful Woman. 
By Courtesy of Major Lee Moorehouse. 



The Land where the River Flows 31 

dead should never again return nor hold any com- 
munication with the living. 

In concluding this chapter we cannot forbear to 
call the attention of our readers to the rare beauty of 
many of the native Indian names of localities. These 
names always have some significance, and ordinarily 
there is some such poetic or figurative conception in- 
volved in the name as plainly reveals the fact that these 
rude and unfortunate natives have the souls of poets 
beneath their savage exterior. It is truly lamentable 
that some of the sonorous and poetic native names 
have been thrust aside for the commonplace and oft- 
repeated names of Eastern or European localities or 
the still less attractive names of discoverers or their 
unimportant friends. 

Think of using the names Salem and Portland for 
Chemeketa and Multnomah, the native names. Cheme- 
keta means " Here we Rest," or, some say, the " Place 
of Peace," for it was the council ground of the Willa- 
mette Valley Indians. But the Methodist mission- 
aries thought that it would have a more Biblical sound 
and conduce to the spiritual welfare of the natives to 
translate the word into its equivalent, Salem. So they 
spoiled the wild native beauty of the name for all 
time. INIultnomah means " Dow^n the River." But 
two Yankee sea captains, with a sad deficiency of 
poetry in them, tossed up a coin to decide whether to 
employ the name of Boston or Portland, the native 
town of each, and the latter won the toss. 

Oregon has been more fortunate than Washington 
in its State name, for it has the unique name, stately 
and sonorous, which old Jonathan Carver first used 
for the River and which is one of the most distinctive 



32 The Columbia River 

of all the names of States. But whether Oregon is 
Indian, Spanish, French, or a corruption of something 
else, or a jpure invention of Carver's is one of the 
mooted points in our history. Idaho, too, has one of 
the most mellifluous of names, meaning the " Gem of 
the Mountains." 

All three States have many beautiful and appropri- 
ate names of rivers, lakes, mountains, and cities. Such 
are Chelan, "Beautiful Water"; Umatilla, "The 
Wind-blown Sand"; Walla Walla, "Where the 
Waters Meet"; Shuksan, "The Place of the Storm 
Winds"; Spokane," The People of the Sun"; Kul- 
shan, " The Great White Watcher " ; Snoqualmie, 
" The Falls of the Moon God." Seattle derives its 
name from the old chief Seattle, or Sealth. 

The most bitterly disputed name of all is Tacoma 
vs. Rainier, as the name of the greatest of our moun- 
tains. The name of Rainier was derived by Vancouver 
from that of an officer of the British navy, a man wlio 
never knew anything of Oregon and had no part or 
lot in its discovery or development. Tacoma, or more 
accurately, TakTioma (a peculiar guttural which we 
cannot fully indicate) , was the native Indian name, 
meaning, according to some, " The Great White Moun- 
tain," and according to others meaning " The Fountain- 
breast of Milk-white Waters." 

With these glances at the character of the land, 
and its native inhabitants, we are now ready to see 
how they became known to the world. 



CHAPTER II 

Tales of the First White Men along the Coast 

Nekahni Mountain and Tallapus — Quootshoi and Toulux — Original 
Beauty of Clatsop Plains — The Story Told by Celiast and Cultee — 
Casting of the " Thing " upon the Beach — The Pop-corn — Burn- 
ing of the Ship — Konapee, the Iron-worker — Franchere's Ac- 
count of Soto — The Treasure Ship on the Beach at Nekahni 
Mountain — The Black Spook and Mysterious Chest — The In- 
scription Still Found on the Rock — The Beeswax Ship — 
Quiaculliby. 

WE have told something of the mountains, rivers, 
and lakes which make up the framework of 
our Pacific North-west. We have also tried 
to see the land through the eyes of the native red men, 
and have called back a few of the grotesque, fantastic, 
sometimes heroic, sometimes pathetic legends which 
they associated with every phase of their country. 

Now the very centre of Indian lore, the Parnassus, 
the Delphi, the Dodona, of the lower Columbia Kiver 
Indians, is the stretch of mingled bluff, plain, lake, 
sand-dune, and mountain, marvellously diversified, 
from the south shore of the Columbia's mouth to the 
sacred Nekahni ]Mountain. It is a wondrously pic- 
turesque region. From it came Tallapus, the Hermes 
Trismegistus of the Oregon Indians. Its forests were 
haunted by the Skookums and Cheatcos. From the 
volcanic pinnacles of Swallalochost, now known as 

33 



34 The Columbia River. 

Saddle Mountain, the thunder bird went forth on its 
daily quest of a whale, while at the mountain's foot 
Quootshoi and Toulux produced the first men from 
the monstrous eggs of that same great bird. In short, 
that region was rich in legend, as it was, and still is, 
in scenic beauty. 

It is said by the Indians that a hundred years or 
more ago it was much finer than now, for the entire 
breadth of Clatsop Plains was sodded with deep green 
grass and bright with flowers almost the whole year 
through. This bright-hued plain lay open to the 
sea, and across its southern end flowed three tide 
streams, having the aboriginal names of Nekanikum, 
Wahanna, and Neahcoxie. 

It was a veritable paradise for the Indians. The 
forests were filled with elk (moosmoos) and deer (mo- 
witch) , while fish of almost every variety thronged the 
waters, from that king of all fish now known as the 
royal chinook of the Columbia down to such smaller 
fry as the smelt and the herring, which even now some- 
times so throng the lesser streams that the receding 
tide leaves them by the thousands on the muddy flats. 
On the beach were infinite numbers of clams; and as 
an evidence of their abundance we can now see shell 
mounds by the acre, in such quantity, indeed, that 
some of the modern roads have been paved with shells. 

This favoured region was the home of the Clatsops. 
There, too, according to the legends, the first white 
men landed. The story of the first appearance of 
the white men has reached our own times in various 
forms, but the most coherent account is through the 
word of Celiast, an Indian woman who died many 
years ago, but who became the wife of one of the 




Saddle Mt., or Swallalochost, near Astoria, Famous 

in Indian Myth. 

Photo, by Woodfield. 



The First White Men along the Coast 35 

earliest white settlers and the mother of Silas Smith, 
now dead, but known in his time as one of the best 
authorities on Indian history. Celiast was the daughter 
of Kobaiway, a chieftain whose sway extended over 
the land of the Clatsops in the time of the Astoi; 
Company a century ago. Celiast w^as in fact the best 
authority for many of the Indian legends. But she 
is not alone in the knowledge of this appearance of 
the white men, for a number of other Indians tell the 
substance of the same tale. Among others an old In- 
dian of Bay Centre, Washington, by the name of 
Charlie Cultee, related the story to Dr. Franz Boas, 
whose work in the Smithsonian Institute is known as 
among the best on the native races. This is the story, 
a composite of that of Celiast and that of Cultee. 

It appears that an old woman living near the an- 
cient Indian village of Ne-Alikstow, about two miles 
south of the mouth of the Great River (the Colum- 
bia) had lost her son. " She wailed for a whole year, 
and then she stopped." One day, after her usual 
custom, she went to the seaside, and walked along the 
shore towards Clatsop. While on the way she saw 
something very strange. At first it seemed like a 
whale, but, w^hen the old w^oman came close, she saw 
that it had two trees standing upright in it. She said, 
" This is no whale; it is a monster." The outside was 
all covered over w4th something bright, which they 
afterwards found was copper. Ropes were tied all 
over the two trees, and the inside of the Thing was 
full of iron. 

While the old woman gazed in silent wonder, a 
being that looked like a bear, but had a human face, 
though with long hair all over it, came out of the 



36 The Columbia River 

Thing that lay there. Then the old woman hastened 
home in great fear. She thought this bearlike crea- 
ture must be the spirit of her son, and that the Thing 
was that about which they had heard in the Ekanum 
tales. 

The people, when they had heard the strange story, 
hastened with bows and arrows to the spot. There, 
sure enough, lay the Thing upon the shore, just as 
the old woman had said. Only instead of one bear 
there were two standing on the Thing. These two 
creatures, — whether bears or people the Indians were 
not sure, — were just at the point of going down the 
Thing (which they now began to understand was an 
immense canoe with two trees driven into it) to the 
beach, with kettles in their hands. 

As the bewildered people watched them they started 
a fire and put corn into the kettles. Very soon it be- 
gan to pop and fly wdth great rapidity up and down 
in the kettles. The pop-corn (the nature of which the 
Clatsops did not then understand) struck them with 
more surprise than anything else, — and this is the one 
part of the story preserved in every version. 

Then the corn-popping strangers made signs that 
they wanted water. The chief sent men to supply 
them with all their needs, and in the meantime he 
made a careful examination of the strangers. Find- 
ing that their hands were the same as his own, he 
became satisfied that they were indeed men. One of 
the Indians ran and climbed up and entered the Thing. 
Looking into the interior, he found it full of boxes. 
There were also many strings of buttons half a fathom 
long. He went out to call in his relatives, but, be- 
fore he could return, the ship had been set on fire. 



The First White Men alono^ the Coast 37 



Or, in the language of CharHe Cultee, " It burnt just 
hke fat." As a result of the burning of the ship, the 
Clatsops got possession of the iron, copper, and brass. 

Now the news of this strange event became noised 
abroad, and the Indians from all the region thronged 
to Clatsop to see and feel of these strange men with 
hands and feet just like ordinary men, yet with long 
beards and with such peculiar garb as to seem in no 
sense men. There arose great strife as to who should 
receive and care for the strange men. Each tribe or 
village was very anxious to have them, or at least one 
of them. The Quienaults, the Chehales, and the 
Willapas, from the beach on the north side, came to 
press their claims. From up the river came the Cow- 
litz, the Cascades, and even the Far-off Klickitat. 
The different tribes almost had a battle for possession, 
but, according to one account, it was finally settled 
that one of the strange visitors should stay with the 
Clatsop chief, and that one should go with the Wil- 
lapas on the north side of the Great River. Accord- 
ing to another, they both stayed at Clatsop. 

From this first arrival of white men, the Indians 
called them all " Tlehonnipts," that is, " Of those who 
drift ashore." One of the men possessed the magical 
art of taking pieces of iron and making knives and 
hatchets. It was indeed to the poor Indians a mar- 
vellous gift of Tallapus, their god, that they should 
have a man among them that could perform that 
priceless labour, for the possession of iron knives and 
hatchets meant the indefinite multiplying of canoes, 
huts, bows and arrows, weapons, and implements of 
every sort. The iron-maker's name was Konapee. 
The Indians kept close watch of him for many days 



o 



8 The Columbia River 



and made him work incessantly. But, as the tokens 
of his skill became numerous, his captors held him in 
great favour and allowed him more liberty. Being 
permitted to select a site for a house, he chose a spot 
on the Columbia which became known to the Indians, 
even down to the white occupancy of the region, as 
" Konapee." 

Among other possessions, Konapee had a large 
number of pieces of money, which, from the descrip- 
tion, must have been Chinese " cash." From this some 
have inferred that Konapee must have been a Chinaman, 
and the wrecked ship a Chinese or Japanese junk. 
This does not, however, follow. For the Spaniards 
had become entirely familiar with China, and any 
Spanish vessel returning from the Philippine Islands 
or from China would have been likely to have a supply 
of Chinese money on board. 

There is an interesting bit of testimony which 
seems to belong to this same story of Konapee. It 
is found in the book by Gabriel Franchere in regard 
to the founding of Astoria, the book which was the 
chief authority of Irving in his fascinating narrative 
entitled Astoria. Franchere describes meeting an 
old man, eighty years old, in 1811, at the Cascades, 
whose name was Soto, and who said that his father 
was one of four Spaniards wrecked on Clatsop beach 
many years before. His father had tried to reach 
the land of the sunrise by going southward, but having 
reached the Cascades was prevented from going farther 
and had there married an Indian woman, Soto's mother. 
It is thought likely that the father of Soto was Kona- 
pee. The two stories seem to fit quite well. If this 
be true, it is likely that Konapee's landing was as 



The First White Men along the Coast 39 

early as 1725. If all the details of Konapee's life 
could be known, what a romance might be made of it! 
There is no reason to suppose that he ever saw other 
white men or ever got away from the region where the 
fortune of shipwreck had cast him. Yet he was in 
possession of one of the greatest geographical secrets 
of that country, for the hope of the discovery of some 
great " River of the West," the elusive stream which 
many believed to be a pure fabrication of Aguilar and 
other old navigators, had enticed many a " marinere " 
from many a far " countree." 

In any event it is probable that the Columbia 
River Indians had got a general knowledge of the 
whites and their arts from Konapee long before the 
authentic discovery of the river was made. Especially 
it seems that from him thej^ got a knowledge of iron 
and implements fashioned from it. Captain Cook 
mentions that when he visited the coast in 1778 the 
Indians manifested no surprise at the weapons or im- 
plements of iron. In fact even all whites who 
supposed themselves to be the first to visit this coast 
found the Indians ready to trade and especially eager 
to get iron. A new era of trade and business seems 
to have been inaugurated among these Clatsops and 
Chinooks dating from about the supposed time of 
Konapee. But he was by no means the only one of 
his race to be cast upon the Oregon shore. There is 
a story of a treasure ship cast upon the beach near 
Nekahni IMountain. This mountain, the original home 
of Tallapus, while on its summit the great chief god 
Nekahni himself dwelt, is one of the noblest pieces of 
Nature's art all along the shore. Fronting the ocean 
with a precipitous rampart of rock five hundred feet 



40 The Columbia River 

high and thence rising in a wide sweeping park clad 
in thick turf, and dotted here and there with beautiful 
spruce and fir trees, to an elevation of twenty-five 
hundred feet, the sacred Nekahni presents as fine a 
combination of the beautiful and sublime as can be 
seen upon a whole thousand miles of coast. It was 
a favourite spot with the natives. For lying upon its 
open and turfy slopes they could gaze upon many 
miles of sea, and could no doubt light up their signal 
fires which might be seen over a wide expanse of 
beach. Very likely there, too, they celebrated the 
mysterious rites of Nekahni and Tallapus. 

One pleasant afternoon in early summer, a large 
group of natives assembled upon the lower part of 
Nekahni, almost upon the edge of the precipitous cliff 
with which it fronts the sea. Gazing into the ofhng 
they saw a great object like a huge bird drawing near 
from the outer sea. It approached the shore, and 
then from it a small boat with a number of men and 
a large black box put out to land. Coming to the 
beach the men took out the box and also a black man 
whom the Indians supposed to be a spook or evil 
demon. Going a little way up the beach the men dug 
a hole into which they lowered the box, and then hav- 
ing struck down the black man they threw him on top 
of the box and, covering it up, they returned to the 
ship, which soon disappeared from sight. On account 
of the black man buried with the box, the supersti- 
tious Indians dared not undertake to exhume the 
contents of the grave. But the story was handed from 
one generation to another, and it came to constitute 
the story of the " treasure ship." 

In recent times the idea that here some chest, with 



The First White Men along the Coast 41 

gold and jewels in the most aj)proved style of burled 
fortunes, might be found has caused much searching. 
The ground has been dug over for the sight of the 
regulation rusty handle which is to lead to the great 
iron-bound chest with its doubloons of gold and cruci- 
fixes of pearls. Parties have come from the Eastern 
States to join the search. One party even secured 
the guidance of spirits who professed to locate the treas- 
ure. But though the spirit-led enthusiasts turned over 
every stone and dug up the sand for many feet along 
the beach, they found never an iron-bound chest, and 
never a sign of the treasure. There is, however, in plain 
sight now, on a rock at the foot of Nekahni Moun- 
tain, a character cut in the rock bearing a rude re- 
semblance to a cross. Some think it looks more like 
the letters, I.H.S., the sacred emblem of the Catholic 
Church. There is also what seems to be quite a dis- 
tinct arrow pointing in a certain direction. But the 
treasure remains unfound. 

The next legend of the prehistoric white man is 
that of the " Beeswax Ship." This, too, has a real 
confirmation in the presence of large quantities of bees- 
wax at a point also near Nekahni Mountain, just 
north of the mouth of the Nehalem River. Some 
naturalists claimed at one time that this substance was 
simply the natural paraffine produced from the pro-* 
ducts of coal or petroleum. But more recently cakes 
of the substance stamped with the sacred letters, 
" I.H.S.," together with tapers, and even one piece 
with a bee plainly visible within, may be considered 
incontestable proof that this is indeed beeswax, while 
the letters, " I.H.S." denote plainty enough the origin 
of the substance in some Spanish colony. An interest- 



42 The Columbia River ■ 

ing point in connection with this is the historical fact 
that on June 16, 1769, the ship San Jose left La 
Paz, Lower California, for San Diego, and was never 
heard from again. Some have conjectured that the 
San Jose was the " Beeswax Ship," driven far north 
by some storm or mutiny. As to the peculiar fact that 
a ship should have been entirely loaded with beeswax 
it has been conjectured that some of the good padres 
of the Spanish Missions meant to provide a new sta- 
tion with a large amount of wax for the sake of 
providing tapers for their service, the lighted candles 
proving then, as they do now, a matter of marvel and 
wonder to the natives, and, with other features of 
ceremonial worship, having a great effect to bring 
them into subjection to the Church. 

The Indian legend runs on to the effect that several 
white men were saved from the wreck of the " Beeswax 
Ship," and that they lived with them. But having 
infringed upon the family rights of the natives, they 
became obnoxious, and were all cut off by an attack 
from them. One story, however, asserts that there 
was one n^an left, a blue-eyed, golden-haired man, that 
he took a Nehalem woman, and that from him was 
descended a fair-complexioned progeny, of which a 
certain chieftain who lived at a beautiful little lake 
on Clatsop plains, now known as Culliby Lake, was 
our Quiaculliby. 

Such in brief survey, are some of the stories which 
preserve the record of the space betwixt the Indian age 
of myth and the period of authentic discovery. 



CHAPTER III 

How all Nations Sought the River from the Sea 
and how they Found it 

Search for Gold — Economic Effects — Early Extension of Exploration 
Westward — Cortez — Magellan — Aguilar — Fables of the Sea — 
Shakspere and Swift — Maps — Great Wars of the Seventeenth 
Century and Downfall of Spain — Long Delay — Resumption of 
Exploration — Spanish Settlement of California — Russia and 
Behring — Perez — Heceta — Cook — Fur-trade — Gathering of Na- 
tions — The Yankees — Gray and Kendrick — Meares and Van- 
couver — The Complete Discovery — Strife between England and 
the United States. 

THE period of the Renaissance is one, which hy 
reason of splendid achievements in Hterature, 
in art, in science, and in discovery, can hardly 
be duplicated. We are here especially concerned with 
the discoverers. A mingling of motives impelled those 
dauntless spirits onward, and among the most potent 
was the greed for gold. Much American history is 
bound up with the mad rush for the precious metals, 
and the spread of exploration from the West Indies 
and ^Mexico, the first centres of Spanish power, was 
one of its results. Only eight years after the landing 
of Columbus on San Salvador, the Portuguese Caspar 
Cortereal had conceived the idea of a north-west pas- 
sage, which in some unexplained manner became known 
as the Strait of Anian. In 1543, the Spaniards Ca- 
brillo and Ferrelo coasted along the shores of California, 

43 



44 The Columbia River 

and the latter was doubtless the first white man to 
look upon the coast of Oregon. In 1577, England 
appeared in the person of that boldest and most pic- 
turesque of the half-discoverers, half -pirates, of that 
time, Francis Drake. In that year he set forth on the 
wonderful voyage in which he plundered the treasures 
of the Spanish Main, cut the golden girdle of IManila, 
queen of the Spanish Orient, skirted along the coast 
of California and Oregon, and at last circumnavigated 
the globe. Brilliant as were Drake's exploits, they 
did not result in the discovery of our Great River. 
In 1592, just a century after Columbus, Juan de 
Fuca, whose name is now preserved in the strait lead- 
ing to Puget Sound, is said to have made that voyage 
which is regarded by most historians as a myth, but 
which affords so fascinating a bit of narration that it 
ought to be true. Two hundred years later John 
Meares, the English navigator, attached the name of 
the stout old Greek pilot to that inlet now familiar 
to ships of all nations. With the passage of a few 
years more, explorations upon the western shore of 
America began to assume a more definite form. In 
1602 the best equipped squadron thus far sent out left 
Acapulco under command of Vizcaino, with the aim 
of carrying out Monterey's great purpose for the 
northward extension of Spanish power. The fleet be- 
ing scattered by storm, the fragata in command of 
Martin Aguilar ran up the coast as far as latitude 43 
degrees. There they found a cape to which they at- 
tached the name still held. Cape Blanco. From that 
point, following the north-westerly trending of the 
coast, they soon came abreast of a " rapid and abun- 
dant river, with ash trees, willows, and brambles, and 



Seeking the River from the Sea 45 

other trees of Castile upon its banks." This they en- 
deavoured to enter, but from the strength of the 
current could not. " And seeing that they had already 
reached a higher latitude than had been ordered by 
the viceroy and that the number of the sick was 
great, they decided to return to Acapulco." Tor- 
quemada, the historian, from whom the account is 
taken, goes on to say: 

It is supposed that this river is one leading to a great 
city, which was discovered by the Dutch when they were 
driven thither by storms, and that it is the Strait of Anian, 
through which the vessels passed in sailing from the North 
Sea to the South Sea; and that the city called Quivera is 
in those parts; and that this is the region referred to in the 
account which His Majesty read, and which induced him to 
order this expedition. 

The interesting question arises, Was the river the 
Columbia? It is the only large river on the Oregon 
coast, though the Umpqua, if at flood stage, might 
have given the impression of size. The latitude is not 
right, either, though the Spanish narrator does not say 
how far north of Cape Blanco they went. But whether 
or not Aguilar really went so far north as the Colum- 
bia, his voyage was one of much interest. It gave 
Spain a warrant to claim the western coast of America; 
it still further strengthened the idea of the Strait of 
Anian; it seemed to confirm the romantic conception 
of a great city or group of cities with civilised in- 
habitants along that passage way, and it gave the first 
name to the river, the Rio de Aguilar. 

Thenceforth the navigators of all nations accepted 
as the primary object of their search some great river 
of the West. Hidden in the fogs of fancy, as it lay 



46 The Columbia River 

shrouded in truth in the mists of the ocean, the sup- 
posed Rio de Aguilar yet held the spell of enchant- 
ment over many an " ancient mariner " of many a 
land. Whatsoever nation could actually find the river 
and establish a definite claim to first discovery, would 
have, by the generally accepted usage of nations, the 
right of occupation and ownership. 

That was a fruitful time for fables of the sea, and 
around the Great River many of them gathered. The 
original of Baron Munchausen seems to have existed 
in the persons of Captain Lorenzo Ferrer de INIaldo- 
nado and Admiral Pedro Bartolome de Fonte. The 
first of these worthies, whose voyage was said to have 
been made in 1588, describes in a very circumstantial 
manner his passage through the Strait of Anian and 
his exit upon the Asiatic side of the continent. This 
he averred was marked with a very remarkable rocky 
eminence which rendered it wonderfully adapted to 
fortification and defence, the mountain being so steep, 
in fact, that a missile dropped from the summit would 
fall directly upon a ship in mid-channel. It is thought 
by some students that some unchronicled Spanish 
navigator may have actually made the inland passage 
up the Alaskan coast and that some report of it may 
have become transformed into Maldonado's story. 
Fonte's story seems to have first appeared in a Lon- 
don publication in 1708, though his voyage was alleged 
to have been made in 1640. He told a marvellous 
tale of a great river which led to a magnificent lake 
on whose banks stood a great city. The river he 
located in latitude 53 degrees, and he named it the 
Rio de los Reyes, or River of Kings. This is far 
north of the Columbia, but the account persisted in 



Seeking the River from the Sea 47 

popular idea for a long time. The name became as- 
sociated with those of the Rio de Aguilar and the 
River of the West. 

These and other similar tales, the flotsam and jet- 
sam of ocean myths, gave something of inspiration and 
suggestion to literature. For even long before the 
alleged exploits of Fonte, the fertile mind of Shak- 
spere had conceived of Caliban and Ariel and other 
fancies of the age of Western adventure. And in the 
next century the prince of political satirists, Jonathan 
Swift, had located almost exactly at the mouth of the 
Rio de Aguilar the land of the Brobdingnagians, while 
the countries into which the veracious Gulliver was 
thrown at a later time, Luggnagg and Blubdubrib, 
were in the Pacific at a somewhat indefinite distance 
from the land of the Giants. 

The land of the Oregon was in short, the land of 
the great unexplored and of boundless fancy. Some 
of the old maps illustrating that period are of much 
interest. Zaltieri's map of 1566 shows a generally 
accurate conception of the eastern part of America 
and of the western coast of IMexico and California, 
but the entire continent above about latitude 60 
degrees is occupied with a mare septentrionale incog- 
nito. Lock's map of 1582 presents a fairly good 
conception of Florida and Mexico, but is entirely 
asti*ay on the western coast. The Wytfliet-Ptolemy 
map of 1597 has a singularly indented coast running 
nearly east and west in the location of Oregon, while 
Cape Blanco and a river, the Rio de los Estrachos, 
in about latitude 51 degrees, seem to be an attempt 
to denote Aguilar's cape of 1543, and to locate 
the river by still another name, though in a higher 



48 The Columbia River 

latitude. Maldonado's map of the Strait of Anian 
of 1609 is manifestly manufactured to suit the occa- 
sion, and is interesting only as showing how far 
mendacity and gullibility could travel hand in hand. 

But now the first age of discovery on the coast of 
Oregon drew to a close. It cannot be said that much 
of tangible knowledge had been attained. Puzzling 
questions had been raised. Labyrinths of conjecture, 
with no definite clues for exit, had been entered. 
Fascinating romances had been so interwoven with 
probable fact that no one could untangle them. A 
general conception of a great river and a great north- 
west passage had been held up with some distinctness 
as the goal of navigators. Finally, most important 
of all, what had been seen was of so enticingly in- 
teresting a nature and seemed to promise results so 
important, that they furnished a motive for continued 
exploration. It certainly looked as though the nations 
would continue the search for the Great River of the 
West. Spain had the inside track of all, though 
Drake and Cavendish and Hawkins had run down 
many a richly laden treasure galleon and had laid the 
booty at the feet of the Virgin Queen, and many an 
embittered buccaneer of French or English race had 
hounded the flag of Spain across the breadth of 
half the seas. 

But a great change was impending. There was 
a new shuffle of the cards in the hands of the Fates 
and the Furies as the seventeenth century moved on 
apace. Spain's time had come. Her cup of iniquity 
was now full. Her whole measure of national policy 
had been the sword for the pagan and the inquisition 
for the heretic. The banished Moors of Granada and 



Seeking the River from the Sea 49 

the murdered " Beggars " of Holland and the wasted 
Incas and Montezumas of America united to call 
down the vengeance of Nemesis upon the destroyer 
of a fair world's peace. 

The stupendous struggles engendered by the Re- 
formation, culminating in the Thirty Years' War, 
went on almost without pause for over a century. 
That strife, ending at Westphalia in 1648, saw Spain 
prostrate and the principle of religious toleration 
triumphant. But almost immediately another struggle 
arose, the natural successor of the first, the struggle 
against the absolute monarchy of the Bourbons^ As 
may well be seen, the nations of Europe were so en- 
chained in the strife against Pope and King that they 
had little thought for new discoveries. Over a hun- 
dred and sixty years passed after the voyage of Aguilar 
before there was another serious movement of discov- 
ery on the coast of Oregon. 

This new movement of Pacific exploration, destined 
to continue with no cessation to our own day, was 
ushered in by Spain. There was even yet much 
vitality in the fallen mistress of the world. Impelled 
by both religious zeal and hope of material gain, the 
immigration of 1769 went forth from La Paz to San 
Diego and INIonterey. That inaugurated the singular 
and poetic, in some aspects even beautiful, history of 
Spanish California, an era w^hich has provided so much 
of romance and poetry for literature in the California 
of our own times. The march of events had made 
it plain to the Spanish Government that, if it was to 
retain a hold on the Pacific Coast, it must bestir it- 
self. Russia, England, and France, released in a 
measure from the pressure of European struggles, 



go The Columbia River 

were fitting out expeditions to resume the arrested 
efforts of the sixteenth century. It seemed plain also 
that colonial America was going to be an active rival 
on the seas. And well may it have so seemed, for, 
in the sign of the Yankee sailor, the conquest was to 
be made. 

But just at that important juncture a most favour- 
ing condition arose for Spain. The government of 
England precipitated the struggle of the American 
Revolution. France soon joined to strike her island 
rival a deadly blow by assisting in the liberation of 
the colonies. For the time, Spain had nearly a clear 
field for Pacific discovery, so far as England and 
France were concerned. As for Russia, the danger 
was more imminent. Russia had, indeed, begun to 
look in the direction of Pacific expansion a long time 
prior to the Spanish immigration to California. That 
vast monarchy, transformed by the genius of Peter 
the Great, had stretched its arms from the Baltic to 
the Aleutian Archipelago, and had looked from the 
frozen seas of Siberia to the open Pacific as a fairer 
field for expansion. Many years elapsed, however, be- 
fore Peter's great designs could be fulfilled. Not till 
1741 did Vitus Behring thread the thousand islands of 
Sitka and gaze upon the glaciated crest of Mt. St. 
Elias. And it was not till thirty years later that it 
became understood that the Bay of Avatcha was con- 
nected by the open sea with China. In 1771 the first 
cargo of furs was shipped directly from Avatcha to 
Canton. Then first the vastness of the Pacific Ocean 
was comprehended. Then first it was understood 
that the same waters which lashed the frozen ramparts 
of Kamchatka encircled the coral islands of the South 



Seeking the River from the Sea 51 

Sea and roared against the stormy barriers of Cape 
Horn. 

The Russians did not find the Great River, though 
Behring in 1740-1 seems to have been as far south 
as the latitude of 46 degrees, but at an uncertain 
distance off the Oregon Coast. 

Three Spanish voyages followed in rapid succession: 
that of Perez in 1774, of Heceta in 1775, and of 
Bodega in 1779. The only notable things in connec- 
tion with the voyage of Perez were his discovery of 
Queen Charlotte's Island, with the sea-otter furs 
traded by the natives, the first sight of that superb 
group of mountains which we now call the Olympic, 
but w^hich the Spaniards named the Sierra de Santa 
Rosalia, and finally the fine harbour of Nootka on 
Vancouver Island, named by Perez Port San Lorenzo, 
for years the centre of the fur-trade and the general 
rendezvous of ships of all nations. But no river was 
found. 

With another year a still completer expedition was 
fitted out, Bruno Heceta being commander and Fran- 
cisco de la Bodega y Quadra, second in command. 
This voyage was the most important and interesting 
thus far in the history of the Columbia River explora- 
tion. For Pleceta actually found the Great River, so 
long sought and so constantly eluding discovery. On 
June 10, 1775, Heceta passed Cape Mendocino, and 
entered a small bay just northward. There he en- 
tered into friendly relations with the natives and took 
solemn possession of the country in the name of His 
Catholic Majesty of Spain. Sailing thence north- 
ward, he again touched land just south of the Straits 
of Fuca, but there he met disaster at the ill-omened 



52 The Columbia River 

point subsequently named Destruction Island. For 
there his boat landing for exploration was set upon 
by the savage inhabitants, and the entire boat-load 
murdered. Moving southward again, on August 15th, 
in latitude 46 degrees 10 minutes, Heceta found him- 
self abreast of some great river. Deciding that this 
must be indeed the mysterious Strait of Fuca, or the 
long concealed river of the other ancient navigators, 
he made two efforts to enter, but the powerful cur- 
rent and uncertain depths deterred him, and he at last 
gave up the effort and bore away for Monterey. Three 
additional names were bestowed upon the River at this 
time. Thinking the entrance a /bay, Heceta named 
it, in honour of the day, Ensenada de Asuncion. Later 
it was more commonly known a^^^^s^p^da de Heceta, 
while the Spanish charts desi^atea the fiv^r as Rio 
de San Roque. The name of Cabo de Frondoso 
(Leafy Cape) was bestowed upon the low promon- 
tory on the south, now known as Point Adams, while 
upon the picturesque headland on the north which we 
now designate as Cape Hancock, the devout Span- 
iards conferred the name of Cabo de San Roque, 
August 16th being the day sacred to that saint. 

The original account given by Heceta is so in- 
teresting that we insert it here: 

On the 17th day of August I sailed along the coast to the 
46th degree, and observed that from the latitude 47 degrees 
4 minutes to that of 4G degrees 10 minutes, it runs in the 
angle of 18 degrees of the second quadrant, and from that 
latitude to 46 degrees 4 minutes, in the angle of 12 degrees 
of the same quadrant; the soundings, the shore, the wooded 
character of the country, and the little islands, being the 
same as on the preceding days. 



Seeking the River from the Sea 53 

On the evening of this day I discovered a large bay, to 
which I gave the name Assumption Bay, and a plan of which 
will be found in this journal. Its latitude and longitude are 
determined according to the most exact means afforded by 
theory and practice. The latitudes of the two most pro- 
minent capes of this bay are calculated from the observations 
of this day. 

Having arrived opposite this bay at six in the evening, 
and placed the ship nearly midway between the two capes, 
I sounded and found bottom in four brazas [nearly four 
fathoms]. The currents and eddies were so strong that, not- 
withstanding a press of sail, it was difficult to get out clear 
of the northern cape, towards which the current ran, though 
its direction was eastward in consequence of the tide being at, 
flood. These currents and eddies caused me to believe that 
the place is the mouth of some great river, or of some passage 
to another sea. Had I not been certain of the latitude of 
this bay, from my observations of the same day, I might 
easily have believed it to be the passage discovered by Juan 
de Fuca, in 1592, which is placed on the charts between the 
47th and the 48th degrees; where I am certain no such strait 
exists; because I anchored on the 14th day of July midway 
between these latitudes, and carefully examined everything 
around. Notwithstanding the great difference between this 
bay and the passage mentioned by De Fuca, I have little diffi- 
culty in conceiving they may be the same, having observed 
equal or greater differences in the latitudes of other capes 
and ports on this coast, as I will show at the proper time; 
and in all cases latitudes thus assigned are higher than the 
real ones. 

I did not enter and anchor in this port, which in my plan 
I suppose to be formed by an island, notwithstanding my 
strong desire to do so; because, having consulted with the 
second captain, Don Juan Perez, and the pilot Don Christoval 
Kevilla, they insisted I ought not to attempt it, as, if we let 
go the anchor, we should not have men enough to get it up, 
and to attend to the other operations which would be thereby 
necessary. Considering this, and also, that in order to reach 
the anchorage, I should be obliged to lower my long boat 



54 The Columbia River 

(the only boat I had) and to man it with at least fourteen 
of the crew, as I could not manage with fewer, and also as 
it was then late in the day, I resolved to put out; and at 
the distance of three leagues I lay to. In the course of that 
night, I experienced heavy currents to the south-west, which 
made it impossible to enter the bay on the following morn- 
ing, as I was far to leeward. These currents, however, con- 
vinced me that a great quantity of water rushed from this 
bay on the ebb of the tide. 

The two capes which I name in my plan. Cape San Roque 
and Cape Frondoso, lie in the angle of 10 degrees of the third 
quadrant. They are both faced with red earth and are of 
little elevation. 

On the 18th I observed Cape Frondoso, with another 
cape, to which I gave the name of Cape Falcon, situated in the 
latitude of 45 degrees 43 minutes, and they lay at an angle 
of 22 degrees of the third quadrant, and from the last men- 
tioned cape I traced the coast running in the angle of 5 de- 
grees of the second quadrant. This land is mountainous, 
but not very high, nor so well wooded as that lying between 
the latitudes of 48 degrees 80 minutes, and 46 degrees. On 
sounding I found great differences: at a distance of seven 
leagues I got bottom at 84 brazas; and nearer the coast I 
sometimes found no bottom ; from which I am inclined to be- 
lieve there are reefs or shoals on these coasts, which is also 
shown by the colour of the water. In some places the coast 
presents a beach, in others, it is rocky. 

A flat-topped mountain, which I named the Table, will 
enable any navigator to know the position of Cape Falcon 
without observing it; as it is in the latitude of 45 degrees 
28 minutes, and may be seen at a great distance, being some- 
^vhat elevated. 

It may be added that the Cape Falcon of Heceta 
was the bold elevation fronting the sea, known now 
as Tillamook Head, while the Table Mountain was 
doubtless what we now call Nekahni Mountain, both 
points especially the scenes of Indian myth. 



Seeking: the River from the Sea 55 



'& 



Such was the actual discovery of the Columbia 
River, and as such the Spaniards justly laid claim to 
Oregon. Their treaty with the United States in 1819 
was the formal conveyance of their claims to us. 
Nevertheless Heceta only half discovered the River. 
It seems very strange that with the all-important ob- 
ject of two centuries' search before him, he should so 
readily have succumbed to the fear of the powerful 
outstanding current. But the Spaniards were not in 
general the patient and persistent students of the 
shores that the English and Americans were. Their 
charts were in general worthless. Nevertheless Spain 
came nearest " making good " of any of the European 
powers. In 1779 Bodega and Arteaga sailed far 
north and sighted a vast snow peak "higher than 
Orizaba," which was doubtless St. Elias. Ten years 
later Martinez and De Haro established themselves at 
Nootka. Subsequent voyages of Bodega, Valdez, and 
Galiano, and their first circumnavigation of Vancouver 
Island (named by them Quadra's Island, but, by 
mutual courtesy and good- will of the British and 
Spanish rivals, designated Vancouver's and Quadra's 
Island), gave them a clear title to the Pacific Coast 
of North America from latitude 60 degrees to Mexico. 

But " that is another story." What of the Great 
River? In the very year of the declaration of Ameri- 
can independence, the most elaborate expedition yet 
fitted out for western discovery, set forth from Eng- 
land in command of that Columbus of the eighteenth 
century. Captain James Cook. After nearly two 
years of important movements in the Southern Hemi- 
sphere and among the Pacific Islands, Cook turned 
to that goal of all nations, the coast of Oregon. But 



56 The Columbia River 

the same singular fatality which had baffled many of 
the explorers thus far, attended this most skilful navi- 
gator and best equipped squadron thus far seen on 
Pacific waters. For Cook passed and repassed the 
near vicinity of both the Straits of Fuca and the Colum- 
bia River, but without finding either. Killed by the 
treacherous natives of Hawaii in 1779, Cook left a 
great name, a more intelligent conception of world 
geography than was known before, and greatly 
strengthened claims by Great Britain to the owner- 
ship of pivotal points of the Pacific. Of all the great 
English navigators, Cook is perhaps best entitled to 
join the grand chorus that sings the Song^s of Seven 
Seas. But he did not see the Great River of the 
West. What had become of it? After the fleeting 
vision which it accorded to Heceta, it seemed to have 
gone into hiding. 

But a new set of motives came into play immediately 
after Cook's voyage. The two ships, the Resolution 
and Discovery, took with them to China a quantity of 
furs from Nootka. A few years earlier, as previously 
stated, the Russian fur-trade from Avatcha to China 
had been inaugurated. A great demand for peltries 
sprang up at once. A new regime dawned in Chinese 
and East India trade. Gold, silver, and jewels had 
not thus far rewarded the search of explorers. They 
were reserved for our later days of need. But the 
fur-trade was as good as gold. The North Pacific 
Coast, already interesting, assumed a new importance 
in the eyes of Europeans. The " struggle for posses- 
sion " was on. The ships of all nations converged 
upon the fabled Strait and River of Oregon. Eng- 
lishj Dutch, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Americans, 



Seeking the River from the Sea 57 

began in the decade of the eighties to crowd to the 
land where the sea-otter, beaver, seal, and many other 
of the most profitable furs could be obtained for a 
trifle. The dangers of trading and the chances of the 
sea were great, but the profits of success were yet 
greater. 

The fur-trade began to take the place of the gold 
hunt as a matter of international strife. The manner 
in which our own country, weak and discordant as its 
different members were when just emerging from the 
Revolutionary War, entered the lists, and by the 
marvellous allotment of Fortune or the design of 
Providence, slipped in between the greater nations and 
secured the prize of Oregon, is one of the epics of 
history, one which ought to have some native Tasso 
or Calderon to celebrate its triumph. 

Following quickly upon the conclusion of the 
American War, came a series of British, French, and 
Russian voyages, which gradually centred more par- 
ticularly about Vancouver Island and Nootka Sound. 
The British exceeded the others in numbers and enter- 
prise. Among them we find names now preserved at 
many conspicuous points on the northern coast: as 
Portlock, Hanna, Dixon, Duncan, and Barclay. The 
most notable of the French was La Perouse, who was 
best equipped for scientific research of any one. A 
number of Russian names appear at that period, most 
of which may yet be found upon the maps of Alaska, 
as Schelikoff, Ismyloff, Betschareff, Resanoif, Krusten- 
stern, and Baranoff. 

But none of them set eyes on the River, and it 
seemed more mythical than ever. As a result, how- 
ever, of their various expeditions, incomplete though 



58 The Columbia River 

they were, each nation followed the usual practice of 
claiming everything in sight, either in sight of the eye 
or the imagination, and demanded the whole coast by 
priority of discovery. 

Never did a geographical entity seem so to play the 
ignis fatuus with the world as did the River. Thirteen 
years elapsed from the discovery of the Rio San Roque 
by Heceta before any one of the dozens who had 
meanwhile passed up and down the coast, looked in 
again between the Cabo de Frondoso and the Cabo de 
San Roque. Then there came on one negative and 
two positive discoveries, and the elusive stream was 
really found never to be lost again. 

The negative discovery was that of Captain John 
Meares in 1788. Since England afterwards en- 
deavoured to make the voyages of Meares an import- 
ant link in her chain of proof to the ownersliip of 
Oregon, it is worthy of some special attention. It 
happened on this wise. Meares came first to the coast 
of Oregon in 1786, in command of the Nootka to trade 
for furs for the East India Company. With the 
Nootka was the Sea-Otter^, in command of Captain 
Walter Tipping. Both seem to have been brave and 
capable seamen. But disaster followed on their track. 
For having sailed far up the coast, they followed the 
Aleutian Archipelago eastward to Prince William's 
Sound. Separated on the journey, the Nootka reached 
a safe haven, but her consort never arrived, nor was 
she ever heard of more. The Nootka, after an Arctic 
winter of distress and after losing a large part of 
the crew through the ravages of scurvy, abandoned 
the trade and returned to China. Discouraged by the 
outcome, the East India Company abandoned the 



Seeking the River from the Sea 59 

American trade and confined themselves henceforth to 
India. 

But Meares, finding that the Portuguese had special 
privileges in the fur-trade and in the harbour of Nootka, 
entered into an arrangement with some Portuguese 
traders whereby he went nominally as supercargo, but 
really as captain of the Felice^ under the Portuguese 
flag. With her sailed the lyhigenia with William 
Douglas occupying a place similar to that of Meares. 
In estimating the subsequent claim of Great Britain, 
the student of history may well remember that these 
two mariners, though Englishmen, were sailing under 
the flag of Portugal. 

Reaching again the coast of Oregon, Meares looked 
in, June 29, 1788, at the broad entrance of an ex- 
tensive strait which he believed to be the mythical 
Strait of Juan de Fuca of two centuries earlier, but 
which he did not pause to explore. He had resolved 
to solve the riddle of the Rio San Roque or the En- 
senada de Asuncion or de Heceta, and turned his 
prow southward. On July 5th, in latitude 46 degrees 
10 minutes, he perceived a deep bay which he considered 
at once to be the object of his search. Essaying to 
enter, he found the water shoaling w^ith dangerous 
rapidity and a prodigious easterly swell breaking on 
the shore. From the masthead it seemed that the 
breakers extended clear across the entrance. With 
rather curious timidity for a bold Briton right on the 
eve of a discovery for which all nations had been looking, 
IMeares lost courage and hauled out, attaching the name 
Deception Bay to the inlet and Cape Disappointment 
to the northern promontory, the last a name still 
officially used. 



6o The Columbia River 

Meares left as his final conclusion in the matter, 
the following memorandum: "We can now assert 
that there is no such river as that of St. Roc exists, 
as laid down in the Spanish charts." In view of this 
statement of the case it would certainly seem that he 
could not be accepted as a witness for English dis- 
covery, even if the Portuguese flag had not been flying 
at his masthead. 

After bestowing the name of Lookout upon the 
great headland christened Cape Falcon by Heceta and 
known to us as Tillamook Head, INIeares squared away 
for Nootka, and there he spent a very profitable 
season in the fur-trade. 

But into the harbour of Nootka that same year of 
1788, there sailed the ship of destiny, the Columbia 
Rediviva, in command of John Kendrick. With the 
Columbia came the Lady Washington^ commanded by 
Robert Gray. These were the advance guard of 
Yankee ships which the energies of our liberated fore- 
fathers were sending forth as an earnest of the coming 
conquest of Oregon by the universal Yankee nation. 

Gray and Kendrick were engaged in the fur-trade, 
and their energy and intelligence made it speedily pro- 
fitable. It took a long time and a long arm, sure 
enough, in that day, to complete the great circuit of 
the outfitting, the bartering, the transferring, the re- 
turn trip, and the final sale; — three years in all. The 
ship would be fitted out in Boston or New York with 
trinkets, axes, hatchets, and tobacco, and proceed by 
the Horn to the coast of Oregon, — six months or some- 
times eight. Then up and down the coast, as far as 
known, they would trade with natives for the precious 
furs, making a profit of a thousand per cent, on the 



Seeking the River from the Sea 6i 

investment. Gray on one occasion got for an axe a 
quantity of furs worth $8000. The fur-barter would 
take another six or eight months. Then with hold 
packed with bales of furs, the ship would square away 
for JMacao or Canton, six or eight months more. In 
China, the cargo of furs would go out and a cargo of 
nankeens, teas, and silks go in, with a great margin 
of profit at both ends. Then away again to Boston, 
there to sell the proceeds of that three years' " round- 
up " of the seas, for probably ten times the entire 
cost of outfitting and subsistence. The glory, fascina- 
tion, and gain of the ocean were in it, and also its 
dangers. Of this sufficient witness is found in van- 
ished ships, murdered crews, storm, scurvy, famine, 
and war. But it was a great age. Gray and Ken- 
drick were as good specimens of their keen, facile, far- 
sighted countrymen, as Meares and Vancouver were 
of the self-opinionated, determined, yet withal manly 
and thorough Britons. 

Among other pressing matters, such as looking out 
for good fur-trade in order to recoup the Boston mer- 
chants who had put their good money into the venture, 
and looking out for the health of their crew, steering 
clear of the uncharted reefs and avoiding the treacher- 
ous natives. Gray and Kendrick remembered that they 
were also good Americans. They must see that the 
new Stars and Stripes had their due upon the new 
coast. 

The first voyage of the two Yankee skippers was 
ended and they set forth for another round in 1791, 
but with ships exchanged. Gray commanding the 
Columbia on this second voyage. The year 1792 was 
now come, and it was a great year in the annals of 



62 The Columbia River 

Oregon, three hundred years from Columbus, two 
hundred from Juan de Fuca. The struggle between 
England and Spain over conflicting rights at Nootka, 
which at one time threatened war, had been settled 
with a measure of amicability. As a commissioner to 
represent Great Britain, Captain George Vancouver 
was sent out, while Bodega y Quadra was empowered 
to act in like capacity for Spain. Spaniards and 
Britons alike realised that, whatever the Nootka treaty 
may have been, possession was nine points of the law, 
and both redoubled their efforts to push discovery, and 
especially to make the first complete exploration of the 
Straits of Fuca and the supposed Great River. There 
were great names among the Spaniards in that year, 
some of which still commemorate some of the most 
interesting geographical points, as Quimper, Malas- 
pina, Fidalgo, Caamano, Elisa, Bustamente, Valdez, 
and Galiano. A list of British names now applied 
to many points, as Vancouver, Puget, Georgia, Baker, 
Hood, Rainier, St. Helens, Whidby, Vashon, Town- 
send, and others, attests the name-bestowing care of 
the British commander. 

In going to Nootka as British commissioner, Van- 
couver was under instructions to make the most care- 
ful examination of the coast, especially of the rivers 
or any interoceanic channels, and thereby clear up the 
many conundrums of the ocean on that shore. With 
the best ship, the war sloop Discovery ^ accompanied by 
the armed tender Chatham , in command of Lieutenant 
W. R. Broughton, and with the best crew and best 
general equipment yet seen on the coast, it would have 
been expected that the doughty Briton would have 
found all the important places yet unfound. That 



Seeking the River from the Sea 63 

the Americans beat him in finding the River and that 
the Spaniards equalled him in the race through the 
Straits and around Vancouver Island, may be regarded 
as due partly to a little obstinacy at a critical time, but 
mainly due to the appointment of the Fates. 

On April 27, 1792, Vancouver passed a " con- 
spicuous point of land composed of a cluster of hum- 
mocks, moderately high and projecting into the sea." 
This cape was in latitude 46 degrees 19 minutes, and 
Vancouver decided that here were doubtless the Cape 
Disappointment and Deception Bay of Meares. In 
spite of the significant fact that the sea here changed 
its colour, the British commander was so prepossessed 
with the idea that ^leares must have decided correctly 
the nature of the entrance (for how was it possible 
for an English sailor to be wrong and a Spaniard 
right?) that he decided that the opening was not worth j^ 
of more attention and passed on up the coast. So 
the English lost their second great chance of being 
first to enter the River. 

Two daj^s later the lookout reported a sail, and as 
the ships drew together, the newcomer was seen to be 
flying the Stars and Stripes. It was the Columbia 
Rediviva, Captain Robert Gray, of Boston. In re- 
sponse to Vancouver's rather patronising queries, the 
Yankee skipper gave a summary of his log for some 
months past. Among other things he stated that 
he had passed what seemed to be a powerful river in 
latitude 46 degrees 10 minutes, which for nine days he 
had tried in vain to enter, being repelled by the strength 
of the current. He now proposed returning to that 
point and renewing his effort. Vancouver declined 
to reconsider his previous decision that there could be 



64 The Columbia River 

no large river, and passed on to make his very elabo- 
rate exploration of the Straits of Fuca and their con- 
nected waters, and to discover to his great chagrin, 
that the Spaniards had forestalled him in point of 
time. 

The vessels parted. Gray sailed south and on 
May 10, 1792, paused abreast of the same reflex of 
water where before for nine days he had tried vainly 
to enter. The morning of the 11th dawned clear and 
favourable, light wind, gentle sea, a broad, clear 
channel, plainly of sufficient depth. The time was 
now come. The man and the occasion met. Gray 
seems from the first to have been ready to take some 
chances for the sake of some great success. He al- 
ways hugged the shore closely enough to be on in- 
timate terms with it. And he was ready boldly to seize 
and use favouring circumstances. So, as laconically 
stated in his log-book, he ran in with all sail set, and 
at ten o'clock found himself in a large river of fresh 
water, at a point about twenty miles from the ocean. 

The geographical Sphinx was answered. Gray 
was its ffidipus, though unlike the ancient Theban 
myth there was no need that either the Sphinx of the 
Oregon coast or its discoverer perish. The River 
recognised and welcomed its master. 

The next day the Columbia moved fifteen miles up 
the stream. Finding that he was out of the channel, 
Gray stopped further progress and turned again sea- 
ward. Natives, apparently friendly disposed, thronged 
in canoes round the ship, and a large quantity of furs 
was secured. 

The River already bore many names, but Gray 
added another, and it was the one that has remained, 




.5 



o 




o 



o 



a. 
o 



Seeking the River from the Sea 65 

the name of his good ship Columbia. Upon the south- 
ern cape he bestowed the name of Adams, and upon 
the northern, the name Hancock. These also remain. 

The great exploit was completed. The long sought 
River of the West was found, and bj^ an American. 
The path of destiny for the new Republic of the West 
was made secure. Without Oregon we probably 
would not have acquired California, and without a 
Pacific Coast, the United States would inevitably have 
been but a second-class power, the prey to European 
intrigue. The vast importance of the issue then be- 
comes clear. Gray's happy voyage, that Yankee fore- 
sight and confidence in his seamanship and intuitive 
suiting of times and conditions to results which marks 
the vital turning points of history, differentiate Gray's 
discovery from all others upon our north-west coast. 

As we view the matter now, a century and more 
later, we can see that our national destiny, and es- 
pecially the vast part that we now seem at the point 
of taking in world interests through the commerce of 
the Pacific, hung in the balance to a certain extent 
upon the stubborn adherence by Vancouver, the Briton, 
to the preconceived opinion that there was no import- 
ant river at the point designated by his Spanish pre- 
decessor, and the contrasted readiness of the American 
Gray to embrace boldly the chances of some great 
discovery. It is true that the " Oregon Question " 
was not to be settled for several decades. Much dip- 
lomacy and contention, almost to the verge of war, 
were yet to come, but Gray's fortunate dash, " with all 
sail set, in between the breakers to a large river of 
fresh water," gave our nation a lead in the ultimate 
adjustment of the case, which we never lost. 



66 The Columbia River 

We have said that there was one negative dis- 
covery — that of INIeares — and two positive ones. 
Gray's was one of the two, and that of Broughton, 
in command of the Chatham accompanying Vancouver, 
was the other. 

On the 20th of May, the Columhia Rediviva — a 
most auspicious name — bade adieu to the scene of her 
glory, and with the Stars and Stripes floating in 
triumph at her mizzen-mast, turned northward. Again 
the American captain encountered Vancouver and 
narrated to him his discovery of the Columbia. With 
deep chagrin at his own failure in the two most im- 
portant objects of discovery in his voj^age, the British 
commander directed Broughton to return to latitude 
46 degrees 10 minutes, enter the river, and proceed 
as far up as time allowed. 

Accordingly, on October 21st, the companion ships 
parted at the mouth of the River, the Discovery pro- 
ceeding to Monterey, while the Chatham crossed the 
bar, described by Broughton as very bad, and en- 
deavoured to ascend the bay that stretched out beauti- 
ful and broad before them. But finding the channel 
intricate and soundings variable, the lieutenant deemed 
it advisable to leave the ship at a point which must 
have been about twenty miles from the ocean, and to 
proceed thence in the cutter. 

There is one thing observable in Vancouver's ac- 
count of this expedition of Broughton, and that is 
extreme solicitude to establish these two propositions : — 
first, that the lower part of the Columbia is a bay 
and that its true mouth is at a point above that reached 
by Gray; and second, that the River is much smaller 
than it really is. It is hard to reconcile the language 



Seeking the River from the Sea 67 

used in Broughton's report as given by Vancouver 
with the supposition of candour and honesty. For 
while it is true that the lower part of the River is of 
bay-like expanse from four to nine miles in width, yet 
it is entirely fresh and has all river characteristics. 
One of the points especially made by Gray was that 
he filled his casks with fresh water. Moreover, the 
bar is entirely at the ocean limit. So completely does 
the River debouch into the Ocean, in fact, that in the 
great flood of 1894 the clams were killed on the ocean 
beaches for a distance of several miles on either side 
of the outer headlands through the freshening of 
the sea. 

As to the size of the River, Broughton gives its 
width repeatedly as half a mile or a quarter of a mile, 
whereas it is at almost no point below the Cascades 
less than a mile in width, and a mile and a half is 
more usual. Broughton expresses the conviction that 
it can never be used for navigation by vessels of any 
size. In view of the vast commerce now constantly 
passing in and out, the absurdity of that idea is and 
has been for years sufficiently exhibited. The animus 
of the British explorers is obvious. By showing that 
the mouth of the River was reallj^ an inlet of the sea, 
they hoped to lay a claim to British occupancy as 
against Gray's discovery, and by belittling the size of 
the River they hoped to save their own credit with 
the British Admiralty for having lost so great a chance 
for first occupation. 

Broughton ascended the River to a point near the 
modern town of Washougal. He bestowed British 
names after the general fashion, as Mt. Hood, Cape 
George, Vancouver Point, Puget's Island, Young's 



68 The Columbia River 

Bay, Menzies' Island, and Whidby's River. With 
his usual assurance, he felt that he had " every 
reason to believe that the subjects of no other civilised 
nation or state had ever entered this river before; in 
this opinion he was confirmed by Mr. Gray's sketch, 
in which it does not appear that Mr. Gray either saw 
or was ever within five leagues of its entrance." There- 
fore he " took possession of the river, and the country 
in its vicinity, in His Britannic Majesty's name." 

In view of all the circumstances of Gray's dis- 
covery, and his impartation of it to the British, this 
language of Vancouver has a coolness, as John Fiske 
remarks, which would be very refreshing on a hot day. 

On November 10th, the Chatham crossed the bar 
outward bound for Monterey to join the Discovery. 

Such, in rapid view, were the essential facts in the 
long and curiously complicated finding of our River. 
We see that various nations bore each a part. We 
see the foundation of the subsequent contention be- 
tween Great Britain and the United States. 



CHAPTER IV 

The First Steps across the Wilderness in Search of 

the River 

Jefferson and Ledyard — Verendrye — Montcachabe, the Indian — The 
Indians — The Canadians — Results of the Louisiana Purchase — 
Fitting out the Lewis and Clark Expedition — The Winter with the 
Mandans — Crossing of the Great Divide — Meeting of Sacajawea 
and Cameahwait — Descent from the Mountains to the Clearwater 
and Kimooenim — Canoe Journey Down the Snake and Columbia 
— First Sight of Mt. Hood — Clark in the Role of a Magician 
— The Timm or Great Falls — The Sunken Forests — First Ap- 
pearances of the Tide— The Winter of 1805-06 at Fort Clatsop 
— The Beginning of the Return Trip — Faithfulness of the In- 
dians — Reception of Lewis and Clark in the States — The Hunt 
Expedition — The Voyageiirs and Trappers — Slow Progress to 
the Snake River — Disasters and Distress along the " Accursed 
Mad River " — Starvation — New Year's Day of 1812 — A Respite 
from Suffering in the Umatilla — First Sight of the Columbia 
and the Mid-winter Descent to Astoria — Melancholy Lot of 
Crooks and Day — Results of the Hunt Expedition. 

THE Pacific North-west was discovered both by 
land and by sea. To Thomas Jefferson, the 
great apostle of Democracy, is due the gathering 
of American interests in the far West, and the open- 
ing of the road by which American sovereignty was 
to reach the Pacific. His great mind outran that of 
the ordinary statesman of his time, and, with what 
seems at first sight the strangest inconsistency in our 
political history, he was the State-rights theorist and at 

the same time the creator of nationality beyond any 

69 



70 The Columbia River 

other one of our early statesmen. Away back in 1786, 
Jefferson met John Ledyard, one of Cook's sailors in 
his great voyage to the Pacific Ocean, and grasped 
from the eager and energetic Yankee sailor, the idea 
of American destiny on the Pacific Coast. The fer- 
tile mind of Jefferson may justly be considered as the 
fountain of Ajnerican exploration up the Missouri, 
across the crest of the Shining JNIountains, as they then 
called the Rockies, and down the Columbia to the 
Pacific. Although Jefferson never himself took any 
steps beyond the Alleghanies, he was the inspiration 
of all the Americans who did take those steps. 

Since we are speaking of first steps across the 
wilderness we should not forget that those of other 
nationalities than ours first crossed the American con- 
tinent. The honour of the pioneer expedition to the 
crest of the Rocky JNIountains belongs to the French- 
men, the Verendryes. In 1743, the}^ reached the eastern 
slope of the Rocky Mountains. Their party is thought, 
in fact, to have gone as far as the present site of 
Helena, but never to have reached the sunset side of 
the Great Divide. 

We are told by the interesting French writer. La 
Page, that the first man to proceed across the con- 
tinent to the shores of the Pacific was a Yazoo 
Indian, Montcachabe or Montcacht Ape by name. 
According to the story, his two-year journey across 
the great wilderness through every species of peril and 
hardship, savage beasts and forbidding mountains and 
deserts, hostile Indians often barring his progress for 
many days, was one of the most remarkable explora- 
tions ever made by man. This Yazoo Indian with the 
long name was a veritable Columbus in the nature of 



First Steps across the Wilderness 71 

his achievements. But results for the world could 
hardly follow his enterprise. 

The first traveller to lead a party of civilised men 
through the Shining, or the Stony Mountains, finally 
known as Rocky Mountains, to the Pacific Ocean, was 
Alexander JNIackenzie, a canny Scotchman, leading a 
party of Scotch and French Canadian explorers. In 
1793 he reached the Pacific Coast at the point of 52 
degrees 24 minutes 48 seconds north latitude. His 
inscription upon a rock with letters of vermilion and 
grease, were read many years afterwards: "Alex- 
ander jNIackenzie, from Canada by land, July twenty- 
second, seventeen hundred and ninety-three." 

But the explorations of Canadians were too far 
north to come within the scope of the Pacific North- 
west of our day. We must therefore take up the 
American expeditions which proceeded from the master 
mind of Jefferson. The first of these was the expedi- 
tion of Lewis and Clark. This expedition did more 
to broaden the American mind and to fix our national 
destiny than any similar event in our whole history. 

As soon as Jefferson was inaugurated president, he 
had urged upon Congress the fitting out of an ex- 
pedition " to explore the Missouri River and such 
principal streams of it as, by its course of communica- 
tion with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, whether the 
Columbia, Oregon, Colorado, or any other river, may 
offer the most direct and practical water communica- 
tion across the continent, for the purposes of commerce." 

But before anything had actually been accomplished 
in the way of exploration, that vast and important 
event, the Louisiana Purchase, had been effected. The 
significance of this event was but little understood at 



72 The Columbia River 

the time, even by statesmen, but Jefferson reahsed 
that a great thing had been accompHshed towards the 
development of the nation. His enthusiasm and hope- 
fulness spread to Congress and to the leaders of 
opinion throughout the land. A like enthusiasm soon 
possessed the mass of population, and emigration 
westward began. Already the older West was teem- 
ing with that race of pioneers which has made up the 
life and the grandeur of the nineteenth century. The 
American hive began to swarm. " Out West " began 
to mean something more than Ohio and Kentucky. 
The distant sources of the Missouri and the heights of 
the Shining Mountains, with all the fantastic tales 
that had been told of them, were drawing our grand- 
fathers farther and farther from the old colonial 
America of the eastern coast, and were beginning to 
modify the whole course of American history. The atmo- 
sphere of boundless expectation gathered over farm and 
town in the older States and the proposed expedition of 
Lewis and Clark fascinated the people as much as the 
voyage of Columbus fascinated the Spain of his day. 

And what manner of men were in charge of this 
expedition, thus filled with both interest and peril? 
Meriwether Lewis was the leader of the party. He 
was a captain in the U. S. Army who was well known 
to Jefferson and who had been selected by him as 
possessed of the endurance, boldness, and energy 
which made him the fittest man within Jefferson's 
knowledge for the duties of commander. His whole 
life, from his boyhood days in Virginia, had been one 
of bold adventure. It is related that at the tender 
age of eight, he was already illustrious for successful 
midnight forays upon the coon and possum. He had 



First Steps across the Wilderness 73 

not received a scientific education, but immediately 
upon receiving the appointment of commander of the 
expedition, he entered with great energy upon the ac- 
quisition of knowledge along geographical lines which 
would best fit him for preserving an accurate record 
of his journey. William Clark, the lieutenant of the 
expedition, was also a United States officer, a man of 
very good judgment, boldness, and skill in organising 
his work, and readiness in meeting every kind of 
emergency. The party was made up of fourteen 
United States regular soldiers, nine Kentucky volun- 
teers, two French voyageurs, a hunter, an interpreter 
and a negro servant. The soldiers were offered the 
munificent bounty of retirement upon full pay, with 
a grant of land. By Jefferson's directions, the party 
were encouraged to keep complete records of all they 
saw and did. They carried out the instruction so 
fully that seven journals besides those of Lewis and 
Clark themselves, were carefully kept, and in them a 
record was made of every important, as well as un- 
important, discovery, even down to the ingredients of 
their meals and their doses of medicine. It is safe to 
say that no expedition w^as ever more fully or ac- 
curately reported. Although not a single one of the 
party possessed literary attainments, there is never- 
theless a singular charm about the combined record 
which has been recognised to this day by repeated 
editions of the work. It was well understood that the 
success of the expedition depended largely upon mak- 
ing friends with the Indians, and the explorers were 
therefore completely fitted out with beads, mirrors, 
knives, and all manner of trinkets. 

The summer of 1804 was spent in an easy and 



74 The Columbia River 

uneventful journey of five months up the Missouri to 
the country of the Mandan Indians, in what is now 
Dakota. There they determined to winter. The 
winter w^as devoted to making the acquaintance of 
Indians and to collecting botanical and zoological 
specimens, of which they sent President Jefferson a 
large amount by a portion of the party which now 
left them and descended the River. And, while speak- 
ing of their relations to Indians, it is very interesting 
to note the attitude Jefferson instructed them to take 
in respect to the native tribes. He insisted upon a 
policy of peace and good-will toward all the tribes 
upon the route. It is observable that Jefferson refers 
in a most considerate and friendly manner to the In- 
dians, and instructs the explorers to arrange, if pos- 
sible, to have some of the more important chiefs 
induced to come back with the explorers to the city 
of Washington. He also points out the desirability 
of urging any bright young Indians to receive such 
arts as might be useful to them when in contact with 
the white men. Jefferson even goes so far as to ad- 
vise the explorers to take along vaccine matter that 
the Indians might be instructed in the advantages of 
vaccination. A number of medallion medals were 
made that were intended to be given as presents to 
Indian chiefs, the inscription of which was " Peace and 
Friendship," with the design of clasped hands. These 
medals, it may be remarked, seem to have been prized 
by the Indians as among their greatest treasures. 
Several of them have been found in Indian graves; one 
even in a grave of the Nez Perce Indians in Idaho. 
While among the Mandans, the expedition was 
joined by a very interesting personage, that is to say. 



First Steps across the Wilderness 75 

Sacajawea. This young Indian woman, the only 
woman in the expedition, seems to have furnished the 
picturesque element in the composition of the party, 
and she has in later days become the subject of great 
interest on the part of students of Pacific Coast 
history. 

On April 7th, everything was in readiness for re- 
suming their journey up the River. The explorers 
embarked again in a squadron of six canoes and two 
pirogues. 

On the twelfth day of August, an advance party 
of the explorers crossed the Great Divide of the 
Rocky JNIountains, the birthplace of mighty rivers. 
Descending the western slope, they found themselves in 
the country of the Shoshone Indians. Captain Lewis 
was leading this advance expedition, and, as he neared 
the highest point of the pass, he realised the signifi- 
cance of the transition from the waters of the Missouri 
to those of the Columbia. A quotation from his nar- 
rative at this most interesting point of the journey 
gives the reader a better conception than any descrip- 
tion could, of the feelings of the explorers: 

The road was still plain, and as it led directly toward 
the mountains, the stream gradually became smaller, till 
after their advancing two miles further, it had so greatly 
diminished in width that one of the men in a fit of enthusiasm, 
with one foot on each side of the rivulet, thanked God that 
he had lived to bestride the Missouri. As they proceeded, 
their hope of seeing the waters of the Columbia rose to al- 
most painful anxiety; when at the distance of four miles 
from the last abrupt turn of the stream, they reached a small 
gap formed by the high mountains which recede on either 
side, leaving room for the Indian road. From the foot of 
one of the lowest of these mountains, which arises with a 
gentle ascent of about half a mile, issued the remotest water 



76 The Columbia River 

of the Missouri. They had now reached the hidden sources 
of that river, which had never before been seen by civilised 
man; and as they quenched their thirst at the chaste and icy 
fountain, — as they sat down by the brink of that little rivulet, 
which yielded its distant and modest tribute to the parent 
ocean, — they felt themselves rewarded for all their labours 
and difficulties. They left reluctantly this interesting spot, 
and pursuing the Indian road through the interval of the 
hills, arrived at the top of a ridge from which they saw high 
mountains, partially covered with snow, still to the west of 
them. The ridge on which they stood formed the dividing 
line between the waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. 
They found the descent much steeper than on the eastern 
side, and at the distance of three-quarters of a mile, reached 
a handsome, bold creek of cold, clear water running to the 
westward. They stopped to taste for the first time the waters 
of the Columbia. 

The party was now upon the western slope of the 
Great Divide, in the vicinity of the present Fort 
Lemhi in Eastern Idaho. They supposed that they 
were almost to the Pacific, not realising that a thou- 
sand miles of difficult and dangerous travel and more 
than two months of time still separated them from 
their wished-for goal. The journey, in fact, from the , 
springs of the Missouri to the navigable waters of the 
Columbia, proved to be the most critical of the whole 
series. 

Soon after passing the crest of the mountains, the , 
party encountered a band of sixty Indians of the 
Shoshone tribe, coming to meet them at full speed, 
upon fine horses, and armed for battle. Captain ) 
Lewis, who always showed great discretion with In- j 
dians, took the Stars and Stripes in his hand, and ■ 
advanced alone to meet the party. As soon as the 
Indians perceived that he was a white man, they 



First Steps across the Wilderness 77 

showed signs of great rejoicing, and the three leaders 
of the war-party, dismounting, embraced the Ameri- 
can captain with great exuberance, shouting words 
which he afterwards discovered meant, " We are 
rejoiced! We are rejoiced!" The valiant captain, 
however, was much more pleased with the hearty good- 
will of their intentions than in the manner of its ex- 
pression, inasmuch as they had transferred a good 
portion of the war paint from their own faces to his. 
Lewis now brought up his companions and entered 
upon a long and friendly conference with the chief of 
the party, whose name was Cameahwait. Captain 
Lewis, as the representative of the great American 
nation, set forth to the eager listeners about him, a 
glowing report as to the benevolence of the Great 
Father at Washington, and his desire that his brothers 
of the West should come into friendly relations with 
him and trade their furs for the beads and blankets 
and knives which the Indians so highly prize. He 
also explained to them that they would receive from 
his government guns and ammunition which would 
enable them to cope with the dreaded Sioux or the 
pitiless Blackfeet. Captain Lewis also greatly aroused 
the curiosity of these Indians by indicating to them 
that he had with him a woman of their tribe, and 
also a man who was perfectly black and yet not 
painted. He now made a proposition to Cameahwait 
to go back with him and his companions to the forks 
of the JNIissouri where they had left the main party 
with their goods and boats. Cameahwait very gladly 
agreed to do this and also to provide them with horses 
for the journey westward to the navigable waters of 
the Columbia. 



78 The Columbia River 

After a journey of several days upon the back 
trail, the party found themselves again at the forks 
of the Missouri, but, somewhat to their surprise and 
consternation, the main party was not there. The In- 
dians at first were very much excited, and, believing 
that they had been deceived and that the white men 
were enticing them to destruction, they were at the 
point of wreaking vengeance upon them. But with 
great tact and boldness, Lewis gave the chief his gun 
and ammunition, telling him that if it proved that he 
had been a deceiver, they might instantly kill him. 
Reassured, the Indians proceeded onward and in a 
short time they could descry the boats, making their 
way slowly up the impetuous stream toward a bold 
promontory where the Indians were stationed. In the 
bow of the foremost boat was seated Sacajawea, clad 
in her bright red blanket, and gazing eagerly at the 
group of Indians, thinking it possible that they might 
be of her own tribe. As the boat approached the 
band, the keen-sighted little Indian woman soon per- 
ceived that these people were indeed of her own Sho- 
shone tribe. Quickly disembarking, she made her way 
to them, when suddenly her eyes fell upon the chief, 
Cameahwait. Then to the astonishment of the white 
men who were with her, she broke forth suddenly into 
a torrent of tears which were soon changed into joy- 
ful smiles as the chief, with almost as much emotion 
as herself, rushed forward to embrace her. She then 
explained to Captain Lewis that Cameahwait was her 
own brother, whom she had not seen since, as a little 
girl, she had been seized by the JNIandans and carried 
into captivity. 

Of course there was now the kindliest feeling be- 




Tirzah Trask, a Umatilla Indian Girl — Taken as an Ideal 

of Sacajawea. 

Photo, by Lee Moorehotisc, Pendleton. 



First Steps across the Wilderness 79 

tween the party of explorers and the Indians. They 
found everything that they needed, horses, provisions, 
and guides, placed at their disposal. They were at 
that time, as would be seen by an inspection of the 
map, at the head waters of Salmon River. They 
hoped that they might find a route down that power- 
ful stream to navigable water. But the Indians as- 
sured them that the river was white with foam for 
many miles and disappeared in a chain of terrific snowy 
mountains. It became necessary, therefore, to find a 
more northerly route, and on the last day of August, 
with twenty-nine horses, having bidden a hearty 
good-bye to the hospitable Shoshones, they turned 
north-westward and soon became entangled in the 
savage ridges and defiles, already spotted with snow, 
of the Bitter Root Mountains. 

Thej^ were at this time among some of the upper 
branches of the second largest tributary of the Colum- 
bia, named by them Clark's Fork, though at the pre- 
sent time more commonly known by the more rhythmic 
title of Pend Oreille. After several days of the most 
difficult, and indeed dangerous, journeying of their 
entire trip, they abandoned the northern route, turned 
southward, and soon reached the wild and beautiful 
stream which they called the Kooskooskie, the Clear- 
water of our present maps, one of the finest of 
all the fine rivers of Idaho, the "Gem of the Moun- 
tains." 

But they were not yet by any means clear of dan- 
ger. The country still frowned on them with the 
same forbidding crags, and the same blinding snow 
storms as before. They were approaching the star- 
vation point. The craggy precipices were marked 



8o The Columbia River 

with almost daily accidents to men and beasts. Their 
only food was the flesh of their precious horses. Un- 
der these harassing circumstances, it was decided that 
the wisest thing was for Captain Clark to take six of 
his best men and press rapidly forward in search of 
game and a more favourable country. After a hard 
journey of twenty miles, he found himself upon the 
crest of a towering cliff, from which stretched in 
front a vast open plain. This was the great plain, 
now covered with wheat-fields and orchards, lying east 
and north of the present city of Lewiston, Idaho. 
Having made their way down the declivities of the 
Bitter Root IMountains to the prairie, where they 
found a climate that seemed almost tropical after the 
bitter cold of the high mountains, the advance guard 
camped and waited for the main party to come up. 

Rejoicing at their release from the distressing con- 
ditions of their passage of the Bitter Root Mountains, 
they passed onward to a beautiful mountain-enclosed 
valley, which must have been in the near vicinity of 
what is known as the Kamiah Valley of the present 
time. Here they found themselves with a large body 
of Indians who became known subsequently as the 
ISTez Perces. These Indians appeared to be the most 
honest, intelligent, and attractive they had yet met, — 
eager to assist them, kind and helpful, although shrewd 
and business-like in their trading. 

The Nez Perces imparted to them the joj^ful news 
that the Great River was not far distant. Seeing the 
Clearwater to be a fine, navigable stream, the ex- 
plorers determined to abandon the weary land journey 
and once more commit their fortunes to the waters. 
They left their horses with the Nez Perces, asking that 



First Steps across the Wilderness 8i 

they should meet them at that point in the following 
spring when they expected to he on their return 
trip. The scrupulous fidelity with which the Nez 
Perces carried out their trust is some evidence of 
the oft-made assertion that the treachery characteris- 
tic of the Indians was learned afterwards from the 
whites. 

With five large and well-filled canoes, and with a 
good supply of eatables and all the other necessaries 
of life, the explorers now cast themselves upon the 
clear, swift current of the Kooskooskie, and on the 
10th of October reached that striking and interesting 
place where the beautiful modern tow^n of Lewiston 
is located, at the junction of the Clearwater and the 
Snake. The turbid, angry, sullen Snake, so striking 
a contrast with the lesser stream, received from the 
explorers the name of Kimooenim, its Indian name. 
Subsequently they christened it Lewis's Fork, 
but the still less attractive name of Snake is the one 
by which it is universally known. 

The journey of a hundred and twenty miles from 
the junction of the Clearwater and the Snake to the 
junction of the latter stream with the mighty Colum- 
bia, seems to have been a calm and uneventful journey, 
though the explorers record every manner of event, 
whether important or unimportant. Knowledge of 
their approach seems to have reached the Indian world, 
and when on October 16th they reached the point 
where the modern city of Pasco is located, they were 
met by a regular procession of two hundred Indians. 
The two great rivers were then at their lowest point 
in the year, and they found by measurement that the 
Columbia was 960 yards in width and the Snake, 575 



82 The Columbia River 

yards. In the ghmmering haze of the pleasant Octo- 
ber day they noted how the vast, bare prairie stretched 
southward until it was broken by the rounded sum- 
mits of the Blue INIountains. To their astonishment, 
they found that the Sohulks, who lived at the junc- 
tion of the rivers, so differed from other Indians that 
the men were content with one wife and that they 
would actually assist her in the drudgery of the 
family life. After several days spent in rest and 
getting fish, which seemed to throng the river in al- 
most countless numbers, they resumed their journey 
upon the magnificent flood of the Columbia. Soon 
after passing what we now call the Umatilla High- 
land, they caught their first glimpse, clear-cut against 
the horizon of the south-west, of the bold cone of Mt. 
Hood, glistening with its eternal snows. Landing upon 
the broad prairie near where Umatilla is now located. 
Captain Clark shot a crane and a duck. He then 
perceived a group of Indians who were almost paralysed 
with terror and yet able to make their way with con- 
siderable expedition to a little group of tepees. Hav- 
ing entered one of these, Captain Clark discovered 
thirty-two Indians, men, women, and children, all of 
whom seemed to be in the greatest terror, wailing and 
wringing their hands. Endeavouring by kind looks 
and gestures to soothe their perturbation, Captain 
Clark held up a burning glass to catch a stray sun- 
beam with which to light his pipe. Whereupon the 
consternation of the Indians w^as redoubled, to be 
soothed only by the arrival of the two Indian guides 
who were accompanying the party. The terrified In- 
dians explained to the guides that they knew that 
Captain Clark must have some bad medicine about him. 










O O 

p. 00 

In ^ 

^-1 




First Steps across the Wilderness 83 

for he had dropped out of the sky with a dead crane 
and a duck, accompanied by a terrible noise. 

The Indians being now convinced that he was a 
mortal man, and, moreover, having heard the sound of 
the violin which the negro servant carried with him, 
became so enamoured with the strangers that they 
stayed up with them all night, and in the morning 
collected by hundreds to bid them good-bye. 

The Indians had now given them to understand 
that in a short time they would reach the place which 
they knew as " Timm." This seems to have been an 
Indian word for falls. It still appears in the name 
Tumwater Falls applied to the falls at Celilo on the 
Columbia. A weird, savage place this proved to be; 
crags of basalt, thrust through the soil, like clenched 
hands, seemed almost to grasp the rushing river. 
JNIaking several portages, the voyagers reached that 
extraordinary place now called Grand Dalles, or Five- 
Mile Rapids, where all the waters of the Columbia are 
squeezed into a crack only a hundred and sixty-five 
feet in width. The River, in fact, is ''turned on edge. " 
The explorers, finding the shore so rough that it was 
difficult to carry their boats over, steered boldly through 
that witch's caldron. Though they must have been 
carried with frightful rapidity through the boiling 
stream, they reached the end of the cataract without 
accident. At this point they began to be aware of 
the fact that they were reaching the sphere of the white 
traders from the ocean, for they began to see blankets, 
axes, brass kettles, and other articles of civilised 
manufacture. The Indians, too, were more saucy, sus- 
picious, and treacherous than those of the upper country. 

Being launched upon the calm, deep flood of the 



84 The Columbia River 

River below The Dalles, they observed the pheno- 
menon of the submerged forest, which at a low state of 
water is still conspicuous. They correctly inferred that 
this indicated a damming up of the River at some re- 
cent time. They thought indeed that it could not have 
been more than twenty years previous. We know, 
however, that submerged trees or piles, as indicated 
by remains of old Roman wharves in Britain, may 
remain intact for hundreds of years. This place on 
the Columbia is, however, one of the most interesting 
of its many interesting phenomena. It is evident that 
within very recent times, geologically speaking, there 
was a prodigious rock-slide from the mountains which 
closed the River, producing the cataract of the Cas- 
cades and raising the River above, some forty feet. 

Here the explorers had their last portage. On the 
second day of November they reached the foot of the 
Cascades and perceived the movement of the tide, which 
made it plain to them that the ocean was near at 
hand. Yet, in reality, it was much farther than they 
thought, for the majestic lower River extends one 
hundred and sixty miles from the foot of the last cata- 
ract to the Pacific. It is interesting to notice com- 
ments made by the explorers upon the green and 
fertile islands at the lower end of the Cascades, and 
that spired and turreted volcanic cliff which they called 
Beacon Rock, but which we know now as Castle Rock. 

The rest of the journey of Lewis and Clark was 
a calm floating down the tranquil flood of the lower 
Columbia in the midst of the fog and clouds which at 
that season of the year generally embrace all objects. 
On November 7th the mist suddenly broke away be- 
fore them, the bold mountainous shores vanished in 







«Bi*s»""nW5^- 



■^^^il^:^' 



^■'. 






Cabbage Rock, Four Miles North of The Dalles. 
Photo, by Lee Aloorehouse, Pendleton. 



First Steps across the Wilderness 85 

front, and, through the parted headlands, they looked 
forth into the expanse of the ocean. 

Their journey was now ended. They had demon- 
strated the possibility of crossing the continent and of 
linking together the waters of the Missouri and the 
Columbia. 

The winter of 1805-06 was spent in log buildings 
at a point named by the explorers. Fort Clatsop, situ- 
ated on the Lewis and Clark River at the south side 
of the Columbia a few miles from the present site of 
Astoria. The location of this fort has been identified 
in modern times, as has also the location of the salt 
cairn, upon what is now known as the Seaside Beach, 
commemorated by an inscription. 

One of the interesting little human touches in the 
narrative of Captain Lewis describes the casting of a 
whale upon Clatsop Beach and the journey of the 
party to see the great marine curiosity, as well as to 
secure some of its fat and blubber. The Indian 
woman, Sacajawea, was to be left behind to keep camp 
while they were all at the beach, but she put up the 
earnest plea that inasmuch as she had never seen any 
such curiosity as the " big fish," and as she had 
journeyed all those weary miles from the country of 
the JNIandans, it seemed hard that she should be denied 
the privilege of satisfying her eyes with a view of the 
whale. Lewis remarks that the request of the poor 
woman seemed so reasonable that they at once fixed 
up camp in such manner that it could be left, and 
took her with them, to her intense satisfaction. 

After four months spent in the fogs and mists of 
the coast, and without seeing any of the ships which 
the Indians said were accustomed to come in consider- 



86 The Columbia River 

able numbers during the spring and summer, the 
party turned their faces homeward on the 23d of 
March, 1806. The commander posted upon the fort 
a notice which read as follows: 

The object of this last is that through the medium of 
some civilised person who may see the same, it may be made 
known to the world that the party consisting of the persons 
whose names are hereunto annexed and who were sent out by 
the Government of the United States to explore the interior 
of the continent of North America, did penetrate the same by 
way of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers, to the discharge 
of the latter into the Pacific Ocean, at which they arrived on 
the 14th day of November, 1805, and departed on their re- 
turn to the United States by the same route by which they 
had come. 

They also gave to the chiefs of the Clatsops and 
Chinooks certificates, to which they attached great 
importance and which were afterwards exhibited to 
other explorers, setting forth the just and hospitable 
treatment which these Indians had accorded the party. 
The return from Fort Clatsop to the Missouri was 
in the main a pleasant and successful journey with- 
out extraordinary event, except the fact that upon 
their return they discovered the Willamette River, 
which, strange to say, had eluded their observation on 
their journey down the River in November. The 
journal contains the somewhat quaint statement that 
the chief cultivable region which they discovered in 
Oregon was Wapatoo Island, now known as Sauvie's 
Island, at the mouth of the Willamette. They ex- 
press the conviction that that fertile tract of country 
and the region adjoining might sometime support a 
population of fifty thousand people. They seem to 



First Steps across the Wilderness 87 

regard this as an extraordinary prophecy of prosperity. 
Inasmuch as there are ah'eady over five times that 
number of people in the city of Portland, it would 
seem that Lewis and Clark were hardly " boomers " 
in the modern sense of the word. 

One interesting thing in connection with the Lewis 
and Clark expedition receives special emphasis from 
them in the account of their return journey, and that 
is, the faithfulness, honesty, and devotion of the In- 
dians when entrusted with any charge, as the care of 
horses or canoes. This character of the Indians was 
so marked that one can hardly avoid the conclusion 
that the subsequent troubles with the Indians were due 
very largely to abuse by the whites. 

No better summary can be given of the scope of 
this historic journey than that by Captain Lewis 
himself in his journal. He says: 

The road by which we went out by way of the Missouri to 
its head is three thousand ninety-six miles ; thence by land by 
way of Lewis River over to Clark's River and down that to 
the entrance of Traveller's Rest Creek, where all the roads 
from different routes meet; thence across the rugged part of 
the Rocky Mountains to the navigable waters of the Colum- 
bia, three hundred and ninety-eight miles, thence down the 
river six hundred and forty miles to the Pacific Ocean, mak- 
ing a total distance of four thousand one hundred and thirty- 
four miles. On our return in 1806 we reduced the distance 
from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean to three thousand 
five hundred and fifty-five miles. 

The safe return of the explorers to their homes 
created a sensation throughout the United States and 
the world. Leaders and men were suitably rewarded. 
Though the expedition was not marked by many re- 



88 The Columbia River 

markable adventures or dramatic events, and though 
the narration given by the explorers is of a plain and 
simple kind with no attempt at literary ornamentation, 
yet occurring, as the expedition did, at such a pecu- 
liar juncture in our history, and having such an effect 
to bridge the chasm between the old time and the new, 
this Lewis and Clark expedition has continued to re- 
ceive, and justly, more attention than any other jour- 
ney in our history. President Jefferson, paying a 
tribute to Captain Lewis in 1813, expressed himself 
thus: 

Never did a similar event excite more joy throughout the 
United States; the humblest of its citizens have taken a 
lively interest in the issue of this journey and looked with 
impatience for the information it would furnish. Nothing 
short of the official journals of this extraordinary and in- 
teresting journey will exhibit the importance of the service, 
the courage, devotion, zeal, and perseverance, under circum- 
stances calculated to discourage, which animated this little 
band of heroes, throughout the long dangerous, and tedious 
travel. 

The expedition of Lewis and Clark may justly be 
considered as constituting the first steps across the 
wilderness. The breadth of the American continent 
was now known. The general relations of its rivers 
and mountain systems and prairies were understood. 
Something of its prodigality of resources became set 
forth to the world. A dim consciousness of the con- 
nection of this vast Pacific domain with the progress 
of American destiny appeared to our grandfathers. 
And although the wilderness traversed by this com- 
plete expedition did not come into possession of the 
United States for many years, yet it might well be 



First Steps across the Wilderness 89 

said that our subsequent acquirement of it was due to 
the Lewis and Clark expedition. 

Of the many remarkable explorations which fol- 
lowed, with all of their adventure and tragedy, we 
cannot here speak. For several years all the expeditions 
to the far West were the outgrowth of the fur-trade. 
]Most remarkable of these early journeys was that of 
the Hunt party which was the land division of the 
great Astor movement to establish the Pacific Fur 
Company. That company was established by John 
Jacob Astor of New York for the purpose of making 
a bold and far-reaching attempt to control the fur- 
trade of the Pacific Coast in the interests of the United 
States. While the sea division was upon its journey 
around Cape Horn, the land division was in process 
of organisation at St. Louis. Wilson Price Hunt, 
the commander of this division, was the second part- 
ner in the Astor company. He had been merchandis- 
ing for some years at St. Louis, and had become 
impressed with the financial profits of the fur-trade as 
well as with the vast possibilities of American develop- 
ment on the continent. Hunt was a fine type of 
the pioneer promoter of that age. Brave, humane, 
cheerful, and resolute, he appears to us as the very 
flower of the adventurous Argonauts who were search- 
ing for the seal and beaver fleeces of the far West. 

With Hunt were associated four other partners 
of the expedition, Crooks, JMcKenzie, JNIiller, and 
^IcCellan. Accompanying the party were two Eng- 
lish naturalists, Bradbury and Nuttall, who did the first 
scientific study of the Rocky ^fountain region. There 
were forty Canadian voyageurs whose duties consisted 
of row^ing, transporting, cooking, and general drudg- 



90 The Columbia River 

ery. The remaining twelve of the party consisted of 
a group of American hunters and trappers, the leader 
of whom was a Virginian named John Day. The com- 
pany was in all respects fitted out most bountifully. 

There were at that time two great classes of trappers. 
The first and most numerous were the Canadian voya- 
geurs. These were mainly of French descent, many 
of them being half-breeds. Almost amphibious by 
nature and training, gay and amiable in disposition, 
with true French vivacity and ingenuity, gliding over 
every harsh experience with laugh and song, pos- 
sessed of quick sympathies and humane instincts which 
enabled them to readily find the best side of the In- 
dians, — these French voyageiirs constituted a most 
interesting as well as indispensable class in the trapper's 
business. 

The free trappers were an entirely different class 
of men. They were usually American by birth, Vir- 
ginia and Kentucky being the homes of most of them. 
Patient and indefatigable in their work of trapping, 
yet, when on their annual trip to the towns, given to 
wild dissipation and savage revellings, indifferent to 
sympathy or company, harsh and cruel to the Indians, 
bold and overbearing, with blood always in their eyes, 
thunder in their voices, and guns in their hands, yet 
underneath all of their harsh exterior having noble 
hearts, could they but be reached, these now vanished 
trappers have gone to a place in history alongside of 
the old Spartans and the followers of Pizarro and 
Cortez in Spanish conquest. 

Of the many adventures of the Hunt party on the 
journey up the JMissouri, we cannot speak. For some 
reason, although taking a more direct route than did 



First Steps across the Wilderness 91 

Lewis and Clark, and having, to all appearance, a 
better equipped party, they did not make so good time. 
Guided by Indians, they crossed chain after chain of 
mountains, supposing each to be the summit, only to 
find another yet to succeed. At last on the 15th of 
September, they stood upon a lofty eminence over 
which they could gaze both eastward and westward. 
Scanning attentively the western horizon, the guide 
pointed out three shining peaks, whose bases, he told 
them, were touched by a tributary of the Columbia 
River. These peaks are now known as the Three 
Tetons. 

And now the party set forth upon the long descent 
of the western slope, passing mountain after mountain 
and stream after stream, some of the way in boats 
which the voyageurs made from the green timber of 
the forests, and much of the way being obliged to 
carry their effects around cataracts and rapids, and 
thus losing much time. Nevertheless, they found one 
long stretch of over a hundred miles upon the upper 
Snake which they navigated with comparative ease. 
But having reached what must have been in the 
vicinity of Twin Falls in Southern Idaho, they found 
themselves in a chain of rapids and precipitous bluffs 
where neither boats nor horses, apparently nothing but 
wings, could be of service. This was in fact the begin- 
ning of over a hundred miles of the most ragged and 
inaccessible region upon the whole course of the Snake 
River, a region which, though so desolate and forbid- 
ding in its natural state, is now in process of redemption 
by some of the greatest irrigation projects in the 
world. 



92 The Columbia River 

After a forty-mile tramp up and down the river, 
Hunt decided that the only way to escape the difficul- 
ties with which they were surrounded, was to divide 
the party into four divisions, hoping that one of them 
might find game and a way out of the forbidding vol- 
canic wastes in which they were beleaguered. Two of 
the parties soon returned. One, being in charge of 
McKenzie, continued upon its course northward and 
reached the mouth of the Columbia, without ever again 
seeing the main party. 

During the distressing weeks that followed, the 
main party, wandering upon the deserts and along 
the verge of the ragged bluffs of Snake River, 
suffered the torments of cold and hunger. In places 
the river ran through volcanic sluiceways, roaring 
and raging; in some cases, although within hearing, 
yet entirely inaccessible, so that although within sound 
of its angry raving, the travellers were often obliged 
to lie down with tongues parched and swollen for lack 
of water. The party applied to this long volcanic 
" chute " the name of the Devil's Scuttle-hole, and to 
the river they applied the name La Riviere Maudite 
Enragee, or " Accursed Mad River." 

The lives of the party were evidentl}^ at stake. In 
the emergency Hunt determined to divide his force f 
into two divisions, one on the north and one on the \ 
south side of the river. From the 9th of November ^ 
until the first part of December they urged on this 
dismal and heart-sickening march. They passed a few 
wretched Indian camps where they managed to secure ^ 
dogs for food, and once they got a few horses. The ' 
frightened and half-starved Indians could give them 
no clear information as to the location of the Great 



First Steps across the Wilderness 93 

River, but they signified that they supposed it to be 
yet a long way off. The party was evidently approach- 
ing something, for gigantic snowy mountains now 
loomed dimly through the winter mists. Finding it 
impossible to make headway against blinding snow- 
storms and up the icy crags, they turned their course 
down to the river itself and made a cheerless camp. 
In the morning they were startled by seeing upon the 
opposite side of the river, a group of men more 
wretched and desolate than themselves. It soon ap- 
peared that this was the other part}^ w^hich had en- 
tirely failed in finding either food or guidance from 
the Indians. Finding it necessary that some provi- 
sion should be made for these dying men. Hunt 
constructed a rude canoe from the limbs of trees and 
the skin of one of the horses. In this crazy craft one 
of the daring Canadian voyageurs made his way with 
some of the horse meat, which, poor as it was, was 
sufficient to save life for the time. 

With their little remaining strength, they pressed 
on down the river until they reached another small 
village of the wretched Snake Indians. Urging these 
Indians to provide for them a guide, and at last se- 
curing one by the most bounteous offers of rewards, 
Hunt succeeded in gathering all of his party to- 
gether, with the exception of six sick men whom 
they were obliged to leave to the tender mercies of 
the Indians. 

For another fortnight, the cold and hungry party 
floundered painfully through the snow across the 
rugged mountains which lie between what we now 
know as the Powder River Valley and the Grande 
Ronde. Reaching a lofty mountain height on the last 



94 The Columbia River 

day of December, they looked far down into a fair 
and snowless prairie, bathed in sunshine and appear- 
ing to the winter-worn travellers like a gleam of 
summer. Moreover, they soon discerned a group of 
Indian lodges which they judged were well supplied 
with dogs and horses. Thither hastening eagerly, they 
soon found themselves in a beautiful valley, which 
from their description must have been the Grande 
Ronde Valley. Beautiful at all times, it must have 
seemed trebly so to these ragged and famished 
wanderers. 

The next morning the new year of 1812 shone in 
upon them bright and cheerful, as if to make amends 
for the stern severity of the outgoing year. And now 
the Canadians insisted upon having their New Year's 
holiday. Not even death and famine could rob the 
light-hearted voyageurs of their festivals. So with 
dance and song and with dog meat, roasted, boiled, 
fried, and fricasseed, they met the newly-crowned year 
with their Gallic happiness and abandon. 

Indians assured them that they could reach the j 
Great River within three days. But they found it j 
twice that, and their way led across another lofty 
chain of snowy mountains, before the canopy of clouds 
which hung above them parted. There, looking far 
down from their snowy eyrie, they beheld the bound- 
less and sunny plains of the Great River. Swiftly 
descending the slopes of the mountains, they emerged 
upon that finest land of all Eastern Oregon, the plains 
of the Umatilla. Here they found the tribe of the 
Tushepaw Indians with thirty-four lodges and two 
hundred horses. More significant than these to Hunt 
were axes, kettles, and other implements of white 



First Steps across the Wilderness 95 

construction, indicating that these Indians had ah'eady 
come into communication with the traders upon the 
lower River. In answer to his eager questions, the 
Tushepaws informed him that the Great River was 
but two days distant and that a small party of white 
men had just descended it. Being now certain that 
this was the advance guard which had left him at the 
Devil's Scuttle-hole, Hunt felt sure that they were safe 
and was therefore relieved of one great anxiety. 

After a few days' rest upon the pleasant prairies 
and in the comparatively genial climate of the Uma- 
tilla, the party set forth upon horses obtained from the 
Tushepaws, and after a pleasant ride of two days 
across the rolling prairie, they beheld flowing at their 
feet, a majestic stream, deep and blue, a mile in width, 
SMeeping toward the sunset, evidently the Columbia. 
At the great falls of the River, known to the Indians 
as the Timm or the Tum water, just above what we now 
call Dalles City, Hunt exchanged his horses for canoes. 
This last stage of two hundred and twenty miles by 
boat down the River, was calm and peaceful and a re- 
freshing rest after the distress and disaster of their 
winter journey through the mountains. TsTot till the 
15th of February, however, did they reach the newly 
christened town of Astoria. Rounding the bluffs of 
Tongue Point, they beheld with full hearts the Stars 
and Stripes floating over the only civilised abode 
west of St. Louis. Westward they saw the parted 
headlands between ^^hich the River pours its floods 
into the ocean. As the boats drew near the shore, the 
whole population, trappers, sailors, and Indians, came 
down to meet them. Foremost in the crowd they saw 
the members of the party which had gone on ahead 



96 The Columbia River 

through the Snake River INIountains. Having had no 
hope that Hunt and his men could survive the famine i 
and the cold, these members of the advance guard were 
the more rejoiced to see them. The Canadians, with 
their French vivacity, rushed into each other's arms, 
sobbing and hugging like so manj?- schoolgirls. Even 
the nonchalant Americans and the stiff -jawed Scotch- 
men smiled and gave themselves up to the gladness 
of the hour. The next two or three days were mainly 
devoted to eating and telling stories. 

As we have seen, they had lost several of their 
number from starvation and drowning along the banks 
of the Snake River. They had also left six sick men 
with the Indians in the heart of the mountains. They 
had little hope of ever seeing these again, but the next ' 
summer the party on their way up the Columbia River, 
saw two wretched looking beings, naked and haggard, 
wandering on the river bank near the mouth of the 
Umatilla. Stopping to investigate, they discovered 
that these were Day and Crooks, the leaders of the 
party which they had left behind. Their forlorn 
plight was relieved with food and clothes, and, having 
been taken into the boat, they related their dismal tale. 
It appeared that they had been provided sufficiently 
by the Indians to sustain their lives through the winter. 
In the spring they had left the Canadians among the 
Indians, and had set forth in the hope of reaching the 
Great River. But having reached The Dalles, they 
had been robbed of rifles and ammunition, stripped of 
their clothing, and driven forth into the wilderness. 
They were almost at the point of a final surrender to 
ill-fortune when they beheld the rescuing boat. So, 
with joyful hearts, they turned their boat's prow to 



First Steps across the Wilderness 97 

Astoria, which they reached in safety. But poor Day 
never regained his health. His mind was shattered by 
the hardships of his journey, and he soon pined away 
and died. The barren and rugged shores of the John 
Day River in Eastern Oregon take on an added in- 
terest in view of the sad story of the brave hunter who 
discovered them, and who wandered in destitution for 
so many days beside them. Strange to say, the four 
Canadians who remained among the Indians were 
afterwards found alive, though utterly destitute of all 
things. Hence it appears that the loss of life in this 
difficult journey was not great. 

The journeys here narrated may be considered as 
covering what we have designated as the first steps 
across the wilderness. Within a few years, many 
parties of trappers, explorers, and adventurers, with 
some scientists, and a little later, parties of mission- 
aries, made their way over the great plains, through 
the defiles of the mountains, and down the barren 
shores of the Snake River to the Columbia and the 
sea. Each party had its special experiences, and made 
its special contribution to geographical or commercial 
advancement. But to the parties led by Lewis and 
Clark and by Hunt, we must accord the greatest meed 
of praise for having broken the first pathways across 
the continent and for having linked the two oceans 
by the footsteps of civilised men. 



CHAPTER V 

The Fur-Traders, their Bateaux, and their 
Stations 

Importance of the Fur-trade as Connected with all Other Parts of 
the History — Fur-hunters Compared with Gold-hunters — Sea- 
otter — Ledyard's Exploration — The European Inaugurators 
of the Trade — Beginnings of the American Trade — The 
Great British Companies and their Struggles with the French 
— Mackenzie's Journey across the Continent — Thompson's De- 
scent of the Columbia — Union of the Two Great Canadian Com- 
panies — The American Fur Companies — Henry's Fort — The 
Winship Enterprise on the River — John Jacob Astor and the 
Pacific Fur Company — Rivalry with the North-westers — Arrange- 
ments for Expeditions by Land and Sea, and the Personnel of 
these — Voyage of the Tonquin and her Disastrous Approach 
of the River — Founding of Astoria — Appearance of Thompson 
and the North-westers — Interior Expedition and Founding of 
Fort Okonogan — McDougall, the Smallpox Chief and Bridegroom 
of the Indian Princess — Evil Tidings in Regard to the Tonquin 
— Other Disasters — War of 1812 and Sale of Astoria to the North- 
westers — Restoration of Astoria to the Americans — Monopolisa- 
tion of the River by the Hudson's Bay Company — Their Expedi- 
tions — Hard Lot of Madame Dorion and her Children — Adventures 
of Alexander Ross — The Forts and General Plan of Work — Fort 
Vancouver and its Remarkable Advantages — Dr. McLoughlin, 
or the " White Eagle " — Profits of the Fur-trade — The Canoes 
and Bateaux and the Voyageurs — The Routes of the Brigades 
— Later Americans. 

AS the reader will doubtless already have discov- 
ered, we are presenting the history of the River 
topically rather than chronologically. The va- 
rious great stages of progress, discovery by sea, dis- 
covery by land, fur-trade, Indian wars, missionary 

98 



The Fur-Traders and their Stations 99 

undertakings, international contests, beginnings of 
steamboat navigation, and settlement, overlap each 
other, and each topic compels us in a measure to anti- 
cipate its successors. This is especially true of the 
topic treated of in this chapter. 

The fur-trade was an important factor in the eras 
of discovery both by land and by sea, in the Indian 
wars and in the era of settlement, while the strife of 
nations for the possession of the land of Oregon is 
almost a history of the fur companies and their inter- 
national policies. Remembering this synthetic nature 
of these features of our history, we shall endeavour, with 
as little repetition as possible, to present a coherent 
picture of that great era of the fur-traders. 

Without doubt one of the earliest uses to which 
man has put the loM^r animals is that of clothing his 
body in their captured skins. The acquisition of furs 
has been a special feature of the colder climes. It 
is obviously also a feature of discovery and conquest, 
for it is the wilderness only which yields any consider- 
able number of fur-producing animals. Thus naviga- 
tion, commerce, discovery, invention, economics, finally 
international wars and policies, have been rooted to a 
large degree in this primal business. The fur-hunters 
have held the hunters of gold and precious stones and 
spicery a close race in the rank of world movers. In- 
deed it may well be questioned whether results of 
greater moment to humanity have not proceeded from 
the quest for furs than from that for gold. 

The Spaniards expended their energies in the gold 
and silver hunt in Mexico and Peru and annihilated 
the races of those lands in their pitiless rapacity. The 
other great exploring nations of the sixteenth century. 



loo The Columbia River 

especially the French, while not indifferent to the pos- 
sibility of encountering the precious metals, found | 
more certain and permanent results in the less fever- 
ish and dazzling pursuit of the wild animals of the 
wilderness. Neither the hunters for gold nor those 
for peltries were the state-builders and home-builders 
without whom our American Union would not exist. 
But they were the avant-couriers of both. Our land 
of Oregon has had the peculiar fortune of being opened 
by both for both. 

China furnished the most active and convenient 
market for furs to those who secured their supplies 
on the Pacific Coast of North America. The Rus- 
sians were the first Europeans to enter the Chinese 
market, and they began their voyages as early as 
1741. 

The sea-otter seems to have had its chief habitat on 
the Pacific shore from Oregon to Alaska, and, as the 
ships of all nations began to crowd upon the location 
of the fabled Strait of Anian, the trade with the na- 
tives for these precious furs became constantly aug- 
mented, until the curious and interesting creatures, so 
fatally attractive, were added to the long list of " lower 
creatures " whom the greed of the " higher creatures " 
has exterminated. A book by Coxe published in Lon- 
don in 1787 first made known to the English-speaking 
people the rich profits of the Russians from the trans- 
portation of the sea-otter skins to China. He in- 
stanced a case of a profit of $50,000 from a single 
cargo. It had, however, been known in 1785 from the 
report of the voyage of Captain Cook that the North- 
west Coast of America contained a new source of wealth 
from the accumulation of these furs by the Indians 



The Fur-Traders and their Stations loi 

and their eager desire to trade them for trinkets and 
implements of civiHsed manufacture. 

The first American to comprehend the greatness 
of the fur-trade on the North-west Coast of the Paci- 
fic, both as a means of profit to himself and as a 
patriotic impulse to direct his own nation into the 
channels of westward expansion, was John Ledyard. 
Thomas Jefferson and John Paul Jones became 
deeply interested in Ledyard's extravagant hopes of 
future wealth and glory, but all his efforts came to 
naught, and in 1788 this brilliant adventurer, just on 
the eve of setting out to explore the interior of Africa, 
suddenly put an end to his own life at Cairo, Egypt. 
Ledyard should always be remembered by his country- 
men, for, though his glowing visions were unfulfilled, 
he was an important link in the great chain which 
bound Oregon to our own country. 

During these same years, several Englishmen, al- 
ready noted in the chapter on discovery, Portlock, Dixon, 
Hanna, Barclay, and IMeares, were actively engaged in 
the fur-trade, while the voyages of La Perouse and 
Marchand carried the flag of France on the same quest, 
and Spain's once illustrious emblem of world dominion 
was borne by Quadra, Valdes, Galiano, Fidalgo, Quim- 
per, Caamano, and several others. While these ex- 
plorers all were impelled in part by national pride and 
diplomacy, the hope of sharing the spoils of the sea- 
otter droves was the chief lure to the tempestuous seas 
of the North Pacific. 

In Bullfinch's Oregon and El Dorado is a very in- 
teresting narration of the inception of the American 
part in the fur-trade of Oregon. In a building known 
as the Coolidge Building in Boston a company were 



I02 



The Columbia River 



gathered together in 1787 discussing the reports, then 
first made pubhc, of Cook's voyages. Mr. Joseph | 
Barrell, a rich merchant of Boston, was much im- 
pressed with Cook's account of the chances of barter 
with the Indians for furs and the disposal of them in 
China for yet more profitable cargoes of teas, silks, 
and other characteristic commodities of that land. As 
a result of this conference, a company was formed in 
Boston to prosecute such enterprise, the members of 
the company, Messrs. Barrell, Brown, Bulfinch, Darby^ 
Hatch, and Pintard, being among the foremost of the 
business men in Boston in that good year of the 
creation of the American Constitution. 

The enterprising Yankees rapidly drew to the 
front, so that during the years from 1790 to 1818, 
the records show one hundred and eight American 
vessels regularly engaged in the business, while only 
twenty-two English, with a few Portuguese and French 
are found. It should, of course be remembered that 
the tremendous strife of the Napoleonic Wars was 
engrossing the attention of European nations during 
that time. So well known did the Boston navigators 
become in that period that the common name of Ameri- 
cans used by the Oregon Indians was " Bostons." 
Robert Gray, the discoverer of the Columbia River, 
was fitted out by Bulfinch and others of the first Bos- 
ton Company. During the period under consideration 
the profits of the traffic w^ere usually very great, 
though variable, sometimes actual losses being in- 
curred, while disaster from wreck, storm, scurvy, and 
murderous Indians was frequent. During the two 
years, 1786 and 1787, if Dixon is to be followed, there 
were sold in Canton five thousand eight hundred sea- 



The Fur-Traders and their Stations 103 

otter hides for $160,700. Swan figures that with the 
four years ending with 1802, forty-eight thousand five 
hundred skins were sold. Sturgis states that he knew 
a cax^ital of $50,000 to yield a gross income of $284,000. 
He relates that he had collected as high as six thou- 
sand fine skins in a single voyage and once secured 
five hundred and sixty of the best quality in one day. 
The Indians, however, learned to become very expert 
traders, and as they discovered the eagerness with 
which the whites sought their furs, they raised the 
price. They became, moreover, very capricious and 
unreliable, so that the phenomenal profits could no 
longer be obtained. 

The stage of the history of the fur-trade of which 
we have thus far spoken may be called its first era of 
a free-for-all rush to the new seas, with no vast moneyed 
interests in any position of leadership. But commer- 
cial conditions were already in existence which were 
bound to reverse the situation. 

Great operators, gigantic companies, foreshadow- 
ings of the great trusts of the present, with mono- 
polistic aims, were seeking the ear of the British 
Government, while enterprises, larger, though not so 
monopolistic, were rapidly forming in the United 
States. The great monopolies of Europe had indeed 
existed long prior to the period of the Oregon fur- 
traders. As far back as the beginning of the sixteenth 
century, De Monts, Pontgrave, Champlain, and other 
great French explorers had secured monopolies on the 
fur-trade from Louis XIII. and his minister, Richelieu. 
Later La Salle, Hennepin, DTberville, and others had 
the same advantages. The St. Lawrence, the Great 
Lakes, and the upper Mississippi were the great 



I04 The Columbia River 

" preserve " of these great concessionaires. The Eng- 
Hsh and their American Colonists set themselves in 
battle array against the monopolistic Bourbon methods 
of handling the vast domain which the genius and en- 
terprise of De Monts and Champlain had won for i 
France, with the result that upon the heights of 
Abraham the Fleur-de-Lis was lowered before the 
Cross of St. George, and North America became Eng- 
lish instead of Gallic, and one of the world's mile- 
stones was set for good. Then by one of those 
beautiful ironies of history which baffle all prescience, 
victorious Britain violated the principles of her own 
conquest and adopted the methods of Bourbon tyranny 
and monopoly, with the result that another milestone 
was set on the highway of liberty and the new 
continent became American instead of European. 

But out of the struggles of that century, French, 
English, and American, out of the final distribution of 
territory, by which England retained Canada and with 
it a large French and Indian population, mingled with 
English and Scotch, — out of these curious comming- 
lings, economic, commercial, political, religious, and 
ethnic, grew the great English fur companies, whose 
history was largely wrought out on the shores of the 
Columbia, and from whose juxtaposition with the 
American State-builder the romance and epic grandeur 
of the history of the River largely comes. 

Many enterprises were started by the French and 
English in the seventeenth century, but the Hudson's 
Bay Company became the Goliath of them all. The 
first charter of this gigantic organisation was granted 
in 1670 by Charles II. to Prince Rupert and seven- 
teen others, with a capital stock of ten thousand five 



The Fur-Traders and their Stations 105 

hundred pounds. From this small beginning, the 
profits were so great that, notwithstanding the loss of 
two hundred thousand pounds from the French wars 
during the latter part of the century, the Company 
declared dividends of from twenty-five to fifty per cent. 

The field of operations was gradually extended 
from the south-eastern regions contiguous to Hudson's 
Bay until it embraced the vast and dreary expanses of 
snowy prairie traversed by the Saskatchewan, the 
Athabasca, the Peace, and finally the Mackenzie. 
Many of the greatest expeditions by land under British 
auspices which resulted in great geographical discov- 
eries were primarily designed for the expansion of 
the fur-trade. 

Just at the critical moment, both for the great 
Canadian Fur Company, as well as for discovery and 
acquisition in the region of the Columbia, a most im- 
portant and remarkable champion entered the lists. 
This was the North-west Fur Company of Montreal. 
It was one of the legitimate consequences of the treaty 
of Paris in 1763, ceding Canada to Great Britain. 
The French in Canada became British subjects by 
that treaty, and many of them had extensive interests 
as well as experience in the fur business. Further- 
more a number of Scotchmen of great enterprise and 
intelligence betook themselves to Canada, eager to par- 
take of the boundless opportunities offered by the new 
shuffle of the cards. These Scotchmen and French- 
men became natural partners in the foundation of 
enterprises independent of the Hudson's Bay mono- 
poly. In 1783 a group of the boldest and most ener- 
getic of these active spirits, of whom the leaders were 
McGillivray, McTavish, Benjamin and Joseph Fro- 



io6 The Columbia River 

bisher, Rechebleve, Thain, and Frazer, united in the 
formation of the North-west Fur Company. Bitter | 
rivalry soon arose between the new company and the 
old monopoly. Following the usual history of special 
privilege, the old company, which had now been in ex- 
istence one hundred and thirteen j^ears, had learned 
to depend more on privilege than on enterprise, and 
had become somewhat degenerate. The North-westers 
" rustled " for new business in new regions. In 1789 
Alexander Mackenzie, as one of the North-westers, 
made his w^ay, with incredible hardship, down the river 
which bears his name to the Frozen Ocean. A few 
years later he made the first journey to the shore of 
the Pacific, commemorating his course by painting on 
a rock on the shore of the Cascade Inlet, north-east 
of Vancouver Island, these words : " Alexander 
Mackenzie, from Canada, by land, the twenty-second 
of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three." 
As a result of the new undertakings set on foot 
by the North-westers and the reawakened Hudson's 
Bay Company, both companies entered the Columbia 
Valley. The struggle for possession of Oregon be- 
tween the English and American fur companies and 
their government was on. In the summer of 1810 > 
David Thompson of the North-west company crossed 
the continental divide by the Athabasca Pass in lati- 
tude 52° 25'. The North- westers had heard of the 
Astor enterprise in New York and realised that they 
must be up and doing if they would control the land 
of the Oregon. Although the character of soil, climate, 
and productions of the Columbia Valley was but im- 
perfectly known, enough had been derived from Lewis 
and Clark and from ocean discoveries to make it 



The Fur-Traders and their Stations 107 

plain that the Columbia furnished the most convenient 
access to the interior from the sea, and that its nu- 
merous tributaries furnished a network of boatable 
waters unequalled on the Western slope, while there 
was every reason to suppose that its forests abounded 
in fur-bearing animals and that its climate would ad- 
mit of much longer seasons of work than was possible 
in the biting winters of the Athabasca. It became 
vital to the continental magnitude of the designs of 
the Canadian companies that they control Oregon. 

For greater topical clearness we will anticipate a 
little at this point and state that after several years 
of intense rivalry it became plain to the British Par- 
liament that it was suicidal to allow a policy of divi- 
sion in the face of a common enemy. Hence in 1821, 
by act of Parliament, the two companies were reorga- 
nised and united under a charter which was to last 
twenty-one years (and as a matter of fact was renewed 
at the end of that time), and under the provisions of 
which the North-westers were to have equal shares in 
both stock and offices, though the name of the Hudson's 
Bay Company was retained. It will be remembered, 
therefore, that up to the year 1821, the two great 
Canadian companies were distinct, and that during that 
time the North-west Company was much the more 
active and aggressive in the Columbia Valley, but that 
after that date the entire force of the Canadian Com- 
panies was combined under the name of the old mono- 
poly. But however bitter the first enmity of the 
Canadian rivals, they agreed on the general pro- 
position that the Americans must be checkmated, and 
during the score of years prior to their coalition they 
were seizing the pivotal points of the Oregon country. 



io8 The Columbia River 

During the next two decades they created a vast net- 
work of forts and stations, and reduced the country- 
contiguous to the River and its tributaries to a sys- 
tem so elaborate and interesting as to be worthy of 
extended study. We can sketch only its more general 
features. And the more perfectly to understand them, 
we must arrest here the story of the great Canadian 
monopoly and bring up the movement of the American 
fur companies. 

It may be noted, first of all, that by reason of the 
quicker colonisation and settlement and consequent 
establishment of agriculture and other arts pertaining 
to home life, the region of the United States east of 
the Mississippi never became the natural habitat of the 
trapper and fur-trader to anything like the degree of 
Canada and the western part of our own land. Never- 
theless extensive fur interests grew up on the Missis- 
sippi during the French regime, and in 1763-4 August 
and Pierre Choteau located a trading post on the 
present site of St. Louis, and the fascinating history 
of that great capital began. 

Most of the American trading companies confined 
their operations to the east side of the Rocky Moun- 
tains. But the Missouri Fur Company of St. Louis, 
composed of a miscellaneous group of Americans and 
Hispano-Gallo-Americans, under the presidency of 
Manuel Lisa, a bold and enterprising Spaniard, took 
a step over the crest of the mountains and established 
the first trading post upon the waters of the Columbia. 
This was in 1809. Andrew Henry, one of the part- 
ners of the aforesaid company, crossed the mountains 
in that year and a year later built a fort on a branch 
of Snake River. This seems to have been on what 



The Fur-Traders and their Stations 109 

subsequently became known as Henry's River. It 
■was in one of the wildest and grandest regions of all 
that wild grand section of Snake River. Henry's 
River drains the north side of the Three Tetons, while 
the south branch, known afterwards as Lewis and 
finally as Snake River, drains the south of that group 
of mountains. Henry must be remembered as the first 
American and the first white man recorded in history 
who built any structure upon Snake River or any tribu- 
tary, and the year was 1810. Both Henry and his 
Company had hopes of accomplishing great things in 
the way of the fur-trade in that very favourable region. 
But the next year the Indians were so threatening 
that the fort was forsaken and the party returned to 
the Missouri. When the Hunt party in the fall of 1811 
sought refuge at this point they found only a group of 
abandoned huts, with no provisions or equipment of 
which they could make any use. 

But though Henry's fort was but a transient 
matter, his American countrymen were beginning to 
press through the open gateways of both mountain and 
sea. In the early part of 1809 the Winship brothers 
of Boston, together with several other keen-sighted 
Yankees, formed a project for a definite post on the 
Columbia River, proposing to reach their destination 
by ship. Accordingly they fitted out an old vessel 
known as the Albatross ^ with Nathan Winship as 
captain, William Gale as captain's assistant, and 
William Smith as first mate. Captain Gale kept a 
journal of the entire enterprise, and it is one of the 
most interesting and valuable of the many ship's 
records of the North-western Coast. 

Setting sail with a crew of twenty-two men and an 



no The Columbia River 

I 

excellent supply of stores and ammunition, and abun- 
dance of tools and hardware for erecting needful build- I 
ings, the Albatross left Boston in the summer of 1809. 
After a slow and tedious, but very healthful and com- 
fortable voyage, stopping at the Hawaiian Islands on 
the route, the Albatross reached the mouth of the 
Columbia River on JNIay 26, 1810. Many American 
and other ships had entered the mouth of the River 
prior to that date, but so far as known none had as- 
cended any considerable distance. Apparently Gray j 
and Broughton were the only shipmasters who had as- 
cended above the wide expanse now known as Gray's j 
Bay, while the Lewis and Clark expedition contained 
the only white men who had seen the river above tide- , 
water. The Winship enterprise may be regarded with 
great interest, therefore, as the first real attempt to 
plant a permanent establishment on the banks of the 
River. 

Winship and his companions spent some days in 
careful examination of the river banks and as a result ^ 
of their search they decided on a strip of valley land j 
formed by a narrowing of the River on the north and , 
an indentation of the mountain on the south. This 
pleasant strip of fertile land is located on the south 
bank of the lordly stream, and its lower end is about i 
forty-five miles from the ocean. Being partially 
covered with a beautiful grove of oak trees, the first 
to be seen on the ascent of the River, the place re- 
ceived the name of Oak Point. It may be noted that 
this name was subsequently transferred to a promon- 
tory nearly opposite on the north bank, and this cir- 
cumstance has led many to locate erroneously the 
site of the first buildings designed for permanent use 



The Fur-Traders and their Stations m 

on the banks of the Columbia. And such these were, 
for the Lewis and Clark structures at what they called 
Fort Clatsop, erected four and a half years earlier, 
were meant only for a winter's use. But the Winship 
party had glowing visions of a great emporium of the 
fur-trade, another Montreal or St. Louis, to inaugu- 
rate a new era for their country and themselves. They 
designed paying the Indians for their lands and in 
every way treating them justly. They seem in short 
to have had a very high conception of the dignity and 
worth of their enterprise. They were worthy of the 
highest success, and the student of to-day cannot but 
grieve that their high hopes were dashed with disaster. 
Tying the Albatross to the bank on June 4th, they 
entered at once with great energy on the task of fell- 
ing trees, rearing a large log house, clearing a garden 
spot, in which they at once began the planting of seeds, 
and getting ready to trade with the natives. But 
within four days the River began to rise rapidly, and 
the busy fort-builders perceived to their dismay that 
the}^ had located on land subject to inundation. All 
the work thus far done went for naught, and they 
pulled their fort to pieces and floated the logs down 
stream a quarter of a mile to a higher place. There 
they resumed their buildings with redoubled energy. 
But within a week a much more dangerous situation 
again, and this time permanently, arrested their grand 
project. This time it was the very men toward whom 
they had entertained such just and benevolent designs, 
the Indians, who thwarted the plans. For, as Cap- 
tain Gale narrates in a most entertaining manner, a 
large body of Chinooks and Cheheeles, armed with 
bows and arrows, and some muskets, made their ap- 



112 The Columbia River 

pearance, announcing that they were on their way to | 
war against the Culaworth tribe who had killed one 
of their chiefs a year before. But the next day the 
Indians massing themselves about the whites, gave 
such plain indications that the previous declaration was 
a pretence that the party hastily got into a position 
of defence. Their cannon on board the Albatross had 
already been loaded in anticipation of emergencies, and 
so plain was it that they could make a deadly defence 
that the threatened attack did not come. A long 
" pow-wow " ensued instead, and the Chinooks in- 
sisted that the builders must select a site lower down 
the river. After due consideration the party decided 
that any determined opposition by the Indians would 
so impair their enterprise, even though they might be 
able to defend themselves, that it would be best to 
seek a new location. Accordingly they reloaded their 
effects, dropped down the River, and finally decided 
to make a voyage down the California coast and re- 
turn the next year. Return they did, but by that time 
the next year the Pacific Fur Company had already 
located at Astoria the first permanent American settle- 
ment, and the Winship enterprise faded away. That 
the design of the Winships was not at all chimerical is 
apparent from the fact that within twenty years the 
Hudson's Bay Company had made of Vancouver, 
sixty miles farther up the River, the very kind of a 
trading entrepot of which the Winships had dreamed. 
Their dream was reasonable, but the time and place 
were unpropitious. 

A quotation from Captain Gale's journal will give 
a conception of his feelings: 

June 12th. — The ship dropped further down the River, 



The Fur-Traders and their Stations 113 

and it was now determined to abandon all attempts to force 
a settlement. We have taken off the goats and hogs which 
were left on shore for the use of the settlement, and thus we 
have to abandon the business, after having, with great diffi- 
culty and labour, got about forty-five miles above Cape Dis- 
appointment; and with great trouble began to clear the land 
and build a house a second time, after cutting timber enough 
to finish nearly one-half, and having two of our hands dis- 
abled in the work. It is, indeed, cutting to be obliged to 
knuckle to those whom you have not the least fear of, but 
whom, from motives of prudence, you are obliged to treat 
with forbearance. What can be more disagreeable than to 
sit at the table with a number of these rascally chiefs, who 
while they supply their greedy mouths with your food with 
one hand, their bloods boil within them to cut your throat 
with the other, without the least provocation. 

On the way out of the River Captain Winship 
learned that the Chinooks designed capturing his 
vessel, and would doubtless have done so, had not his 
vigilance prevented. 

While the crew of the Albatross were engaged in 
these adventures the largest American Fur Company 
yet formed was getting ready to effect a lodgment on 
the shores of the Columbia. This was the Pacific Fur 
Company. John Jacob Astor was the founder of this 
enterprise. Though unfortunate in almost every fea- 
ture of its history and its final outcome, this company 
had a magnificent conception, a royal grandeur of 
opportunity, and it possessed also the felicity, shared 
by no one of its predecessors, of the genius of a great 
literary star to illuminate its records. To Washing- 
ton Irving it owes much of its fame. Yet the com- 
mercial genius of Astor could not prevent errors of 
judgment by the management any more than the 
literary genius of Irving was able to conceal their 



114 The Columbia River 

errors, or the genius of American hberty able to order I 
events so as to prevent victory for a time by the 
" Britishers." As we view the history in the large it 
may be that we shall conclude that the British triumph 
at first was the best introduction to American triumph 
in the end. 

John Jacob Astor may, perhaps, be justly regarded 
as the first of the great promoters or financial mag- 
nates who have made the United States the world's 
El Dorado. Coming from Germany to thi^ land of 
opportunity after the close of the Revolutionary War, 
he soon manifested that keen intuition in money 
matters, as well as intense devotion to accumulation, 
which has led to the colossal fortunes of his own de- 
scendants and of the other multimillionaires of this 
age. Having made quite a fortune by transporting 
furs to London, Mr. Astor turned to larger fields. 
With his broad and keen geographical and commercial 
insight, he could readily grasp the same fact which the 
North-westers of Montreal were also considering, that 
the Columbia River might well become the key to an 
international fur-trade, as well as a strategic point for 
American expansion westward. He made overtures 
to the ISTorth-westers for a partnership, but they de- 
clined. Then he determined to be the chief manager, 
and to associate individual Americans and Canadians 
with himself. With the promptitude of the skilful 
general, he proceeded to form his company and make 
his plan of campaign in time to anticipate the apparent 
designs of the active Canadians. They saw, as well 
as Astor did, the magnitude of the stake and at once 
made ready to play their part. For David Thompson, 



The Fur-Traders and their Stations 115 

crossed the continent several times from 1807 onward, 
spent at least one winter on Lake Windermere near the 
head of the River, and in the summer of 1811 reached 
Astoria, only to find the Astor Company already es- 
tablished there. It should be especially noted that the 
Thompson party was the first to descend the River 
from near its source to the ocean, although of course 
Lewis and Clark had anticipated them on the portion 
below the junction of the Snake with the main River. 

Mr. Astor's plans provided for an expedition by 
sea and one by land. The first was to convey stores 
and equipment for founding and defending the pro- 
posed capital of the empire of the fur-traders. Of 
the expedition by land under Hunt we have already 
given a full account in the preceding chapter, since 
its events rather allied it to the era of exploration 
than that of the traders. The organisation of ^Ir. 
Astor's company provided that there should be a 
capital stock of a hundred shares, of which he should 
hold half and his associates half. Mr. Astor was to 
furnish the money, though not to exceed four hundred 
thousand dollars, and was to bear all losses for five 
years. The term of the association was fixed at 
twenty years, though with the privilege of dissolving 
it in five years if it proved unprofitable. The gen- 
eral plan and the details of the expedition had been 
decided upon by the master mind of the founder with 
statesmanlike ability. It comes, therefore, as a surprise 
to the reader that Mr. Astor should have made a capi- 
tal mistake at the very beginning of his undertaking. 
This mistake was in the selection of his associates and 
the captains of some of his ships. Of the partners, 
five were Americans and five were Canadians. Two 



ii6 The Columbia River 

only of the Americans remained with the company 
long enough to have any determining influence on its 
policies. Take the fact that the majority of the 
active partners and almost all the clerks, trappers, 
and other employees of the company were Canadians, 
and put it beside the other fact that war was imminent 
with Great Britain and did actually break out within 
two years, and the dangerous nature of the situation 
can be seen. Of the ship-captains, the first one. Cap- 
tain Jonathan Thorn of the Tonquirij, was a man of 
such overbearing and obstinate nature that disaster 
seemed to be fairly invited by placing him in such 
vitally responsible a position. The captain of the 
second ship, the Beaver, was Cornelius Sowles, and he 
seems to have been as timid and irresolute as Captain 
Thorn was bold and implacable. Both lacked judg- 
ment. It was probably natural that Mr. Astor, hav- 
ing had his main prior experience as a fur-dealer in 
connection wdth the Canadians centring at JMontreal, 
should have looked in that direction for associates. 
But inasmuch as war between England and the United 
States seemed a practical certainty, it was a great 
error, in founding a vast enterprise in remote regions 
whose ownership was not yet definitely recognised, to 
share with citizens of Great Britain the determination 
of the important issues of the enterprise. It would 
have saved Mr. Astor great loss and chagrin if he 
had observed the maxim: " Put none but Americans on 
guard." As to the captains of the two vessels, that was 
an error that any one might have made. Yet for a man 
of Astor's exceptional ability and shrewdness to err so 
conspicuously in judging the character of the men ap- 
pointed to such important places seems indeed strange. 



The Fur-Traders and their Stations 117 

To these facts in regard to the personnel of the 
partners, the captains, and the force, must be added 
two others; i. e., war and shipwreck. The combination 
of all these conditions made the history of the Astoria 
enterprise what it was. Yet, with all of its adversity, 
this was one of the best conceived, and, in most of its 
details, the best equipped and executed of all the great 
enterprises which have appeared in the commercial 
history of our country. As an element in the devel- 
opment of the land of the Oregon, it must be accorded 
the first place after the period of discovery. 

The Tonquin left New York on September 6, 1810. 
She carried a fine equipment of all things needed for 
founding the proposed emporium. She was manned 
by a crew of twenty-one and conveyed members of the 
fur-trading force to the number of thirty-three. Stop- 
ping at the Sandwich Islands, an added force of 
twenty-four natives was taken aboard. At various 
times on the journey the rigid ideas of naval dis- 
cipline and the imperious temper of Captain Thorn 
came near producing mutiny among the partners and 
clerks. When the Tonquin hove to off the mouth of 
the Columbia on March 22, 1811, the eager voyagers 
saw little to attract. The wind was blowing in heavy 
squalls, and the sea ran high. Nevertheless the hard- 
hearted Captain issued orders to the first mate. Fox, 
with a boat's crew of four men, to go into the foaming 
waves and sound the channel. The boat w^as insuffi- 
cientty provided, and it seemed scarcely short of murder 
to despatch a crew under such circumstances. But 
the tyrannical captain would listen to no remon- 
strances, and the poor little boat went tossing over the 
billows on her forlorn hope. Such indeed it proved to 



ii8 The Columbia River 

be, for neither boat nor any one of the crew was ever 
heard of again. This was a wholly unnecessary sac- 
rifice of life, for the Tonquin was in no danger, and 
time could just as well have been taken for more 
propitious weather. 

The next day, the wind and sea having abated, the 
Tonquin drew near the dreaded bar, but, no entrance 
that satisfied the captain appearing, the ship again 
stood off to spend the night in deep water. On the 
next day, the 24th, the wind fell and a serene sky 
seemed to invite another attempt. The pinnace in 
command of Mr. Aikin, with two white men and two 
Kanakas, was sent out to find the channel. Follow^- 
ing the pinnace the ship moved in so rapidly under 
a freshening breeze that she passed the pinnace, the 
unfortunate men on board finding it impossible to 
effect an entrance and being borne by the refluent cur- 
rent into the mad surge where ocean tide and out- 
flowing river met in foamy strife. So the pinnace 
disappeared. But meanwhile the crew had all their 
energies engaged to save the Tonquin. For the wind 
failed at the critical moment and the ship struck the 
sands with violence. Night came on. Had the men 
been classically trained (as in fact Franchere was) 
they might have remembered Virgil, Ponto nox in- 
cubat atra. But they had no time for classical or 
other quotations. Hastily dropping the anchors they 
lay to in the midst of the tumult of waters, in that 
worst of situations, on an unknown coast in the dark 
and in storm. But as Franchere expresses it. Provi- 
dence came to their succour, and the tide flooding and 
the wind rising, they weighed the anchors, and in 
spite of the obscurity of the night, they gained a safe 



The Fur-Traders and their Stations 119 

harbour in a little cove inside of Cape Disappointment, 
apparently just about abreast of the present town 
of Ilwaco. 

Thus the Tonqum was saved, and with the light of 
morning it could be seen that she was fairly within 
the bar. Natives soon made their appearance, de- 
sirous of trading beaver-skins. But the crew were in 
no mood for commerce while any hope existed for 
finding the lost sailors. Taking a course toward the 
shore by what must have been nearly the present 
route from Ilwaco to Long Beach, the captain and a 
party with him, began a search and soon found Weeks, 
one of the crew of the pinnace. He was stark naked 
and suffering intensely from the cold. As soon as 
sufficiently revived he narrated the loss of the pinnace 
in the breakers, the death of three of the crew, and 
the casting of himself and one of the Kanakas upon 
the beach. The point where they were cast would 
seem to have been near the present location of the 
life-saving station. 

The two survivors of the ill-fated pinnace having 
been revived, the party returned to the Tonquin, 
which was now riding safely at anchor in the bay on 
the north side of the river, named Baker's Bay by 
Broughton nineteen years before. Joy for their own 
escape from such imminent perils was mingled with 
melancholy at the loss of their eight companions of 
the two boats, and with the melancholy there was a 
sense of bitterness toward the captain, who was to 
blame, at least for the loss of the small boat. 

But now the new land was all before them where 
to choose, and since Captain Thorn was in great 
haste to depart and begin his trading cruise along the 



I20 The Columbia River 

coast, the partners on the Tonquin, Messrs. McKay, 
McDougal, David Stuart, and Robert Stuart, de- 
cided somewhat hurriedly to locate at the point which 
had received from Lieutenant Broughton the name of 
Point George. Franchere gives a pleasant picture of 
the beauty of the trees and sky, and the surprise 
of the party to find that, though it was only the 12th 
of April when they set to work upon the great trees 
which covered the site of their chosen capital, yet 
spring was already far advanced. They did not then 
understand the effect of the Japan current upon the 
Pacific Coast climate. 

An incident of special interest soon after landing 
was the appearance on June 15th of two strange In- 
dians, a man and a woman, bearing a letter addressed 
to Mr. John Stuart, Fort Estekatadene, New Cale- 
donia. These two Indians wore long robes of dressed 
deerskins with leggings and moccasins more like the 
Indians of the Rocky Mountains. They could not 
understand the speech of the Astoria Indians nor of 
any of the mixture of dialects which the white men 
tried on them, until one of the Canadian clerks ad- 
dressed them in the Knisteneaux language with which 
they seemed to be partially familiar. After several 
days of stay at the fort the two wandering Indians 
succeeded in making it clear to the traders that they 
had been sent out by a clerk named Finnan McDonald 
of the North-west Fur Company from a fort which 
that company had just established on the Spokane 
River. They said that they had lost their way and 
in consequence had descended the Tacousah-Tessah 
(and this Franchere understood to be the Indian name 
for the Columbia, though the general impression 



The Fur-Traders and their Stations 121 

among the Indians is that Tacousah-Tessah, or Ta- 
coutche-Tesse, signified Frazer River) . From the 
revelation gradually drawn from these two Indians 
(and the surprising discovery was made that they were 
both women) the very important conclusion was drawn 
that the North-west Fur Company was already pre- 
pared to contest with the Astor Company the posses- 
sion of the River. The peculiar feature of the situation 
was that the most of the Astorians, though Ameri- 
can by the existing business tie, were Canadian 
and British by blood and sympathy, and hence were 
very likely to fraternise with the Montreal traders. 

However the Astorians decided to send an expedi- 
tion into the interior to verify the story given by the 
two Indian women, but, just as they were ready to 
go, a large canoe with the British flag floating from 
her stern appeared, from which, when it had reached 
the landing, there leaped ashore an active, well- 
dressed man who introduced himself as David Thomp- 
son, of the North-west Company. He had crossed the 
continent the year before, had probably wintered upon 
Lake Windermere, one of the upper Columbia lakes, 
and had then descended it, seeking a location for the 
Columbia River emporium of the Canadian company. 
But he was too late. It was quite strange by what 
narrow margins on several occasions the British failed 
to forestall the Yankees. 

On July 23d the delayed expedition of the As- 
torians set forth far to the interior, and as a result 
of their investigations, David Stuart, in charge of the 
party, began the erection of a trading house at the 
mouth of the Okanogan, five hundred and forty miles 
above Astoria. It was on September 2, 1811, that 



122 The Columbia River 

this post was begun, and hence Fort Okanogan may 
be regarded as the first American establishment in 
the present State of Washington. It was antedated 
a few months by the post of the North-west Company 
at the entrance of the Little Spokane into the Spokane, 
near the present site of the City of Spokane. 

During the fall of 1811 the Indians around Astoria 
became very threatening. Direful rumours, too, in 
regard to the destruction of the Tonquin began to 
disquiet the Astorians. In the emergency the wary 
McDougall, then acting as the head of the Companj^ 
bethought himself of • a very effective expedient. He 
had learned that dreadful loss of life among the In- 
dians had resulted a few years before from smallpox 
and that the Indians were mortally afraid of it. 
Calling into his room several of the principal chiefs, 
he asked if they remembered the smallpox. Their 
serious faces were sufficient proof that they did. 
McDougall then held up a small vial and continued 
with awful solemnity: "Listen to me. I am the 
great smallpox chief. In this little bottle I keep the 
smallpox. If I uncork the bottle and let it out I will 
kill every man, woman, and child of the Indians. 
Now go in peace, but if you make war upon us I will 
open the bottle, and you will die." The chiefs filed 
out in terror, and peace was preserved. 

IMcDougall still further cemented the bond of union 
with the natives by becoming united in wedlock with the 
daughter of Comcomly, the one-eyed chieftain of the 
Chinooks. After numerous and thorough ablutions 
had somewhat mitigated the oiliness and general fishi- 
ness of the Chinook princess, she was clad in the most 
brilliant style of the native beauty, a grand holiday 



The Fur-Traders and their Stations 123 

was declared at Astoria, and white men and Indians 
joined in the wedding feast and made the welkin ring 
with their demonstrations. Thus did the daughter of 
Comcomly become the first lady of the land, and thus 
did peace brood over the broad waters of the lower 
River. 

During the winter of 1811-12 the two instalments 
of the Hunt party made their appearance, after their 
distressful journey from St. Louis as already narrated 
in Chapter IV. In May, 1812, the company's ship 
Beaver arrived from New York, loaded with stores 
and trading equipment, and bringing a considerable 
addition to the force of men. In the following month 
sixty men were despatched up-river, and by them a 
trading post was located at Spokane and another on 
the Snake River somewhere near the present site of 
Lewiston, while one section of the party went across 
the mountains and down the Missouri to convey dis- 
patches to Mr. Astor. 

At this stage of the history of the Astoria enter- 
prise, every aspect was encouraging. The trade in 
furs on the Spokane, the Okanogan, the Snake, the 
Cceur d'Alene was excellent, a successful cruise along 
the coast by the Beaver seemed sure, and the Indians 
about the mouth of the River were friendly and well 
disposed. Mr. Astor's great undertaking seemed sure 
to be crowned with success. In the midst of all the 
signs of hope came tidings of dismay. It became 
known with certainty that the Tonquin had been de- 
stroyed. This appalling disaster was related directly 
to the Astoria Company by the only survivor. This 
was an Indian of the Chehalis tribe whose name is 
given by Irving as Lamazee, by Ross as Lamazu, and 



12 4 The Columbia River 

by Bancroft as Lamanse. He had escaped from the 
Indians who had held him after the destruction of the 
Tonquin and had finally found his way to Astoria, 
there to tell his tale, one of the most sanguinary in the 
long roll of struggles with the Indians. The next 
great disaster was the wTccking of the Lark, the third 
of the Company's ships from New York. During 
the same period Mr. Hunt, the partner next in rank 
to Mr. Astor and the one above all who could have 
acted w^isely and patriotically in the forthcoming 
crisis, had gone in the Beaver on a trading cruise 
among the Russians of Sitka, and by a most remark- 
able series of detentions he had been kept away from 
Astoria for over a year. 

To cap the climax of misfortunes, the War of 1812 
burst upon the knowledge of the fur-traders and 
seemed to force upon such of the partners as were of 
British nationality the question of their paramount 
duty. As a result of the crisis, JMcDougal and 
McKenzie, although against the wishes of the other 
partners present, sold out to the agent of the North- 
westers, who had repaired at once to Astoria upon 
knowledge of the declaration of war. Thus the 
great Astoria enterprise was abandoned, and the 
Stars and Stripes went down and the Union Jack went 
up. Soon after the transfer, the British man-of-war 
Raccoo7i, Captain Black, arrived at Astoria, expect- 
ing to have seized the place as a rich prize of war. 
Imagine the disgust of the expectant British mariners 
to discover that the post had already been sold to 
British subjects, that their long journey was useless, 
and that their hopes of prize money had vanished. 

With the close of the War of 1812 a series of 



The Fur-Traders and their Stations 125 

negotiations between the ministers of the two coun- 
tries took place in regard to the possession of the 
River, by which it was finally decided that Astoria 
should be restored to the United States. Accordingly, 
on the 6th of October, 1818, the British Commissioners, 
Captain F. Hickey, of His Majesty's Ship Blossom, 
and J. Keith, representing the North-west Fur Com- 
pany, signed an act of delivery restoring Fort George 
(Astoria) to the United States. INIr. J. B. Prevost, 
Commissioner for the United States, signed the act 
of acceptance. Astoria was once again American 
property. 

While the River was now nominally in possession 
of the United States, it was practically under the 
control of the British fur companies. The Pacific 
Fur Company ceased to operate, and the North- 
westers entered upon active work both by sea and land 
in exploring the vast and profitable domain which the 
misfortunes of their American rivals, supplemented in 
a most timely manner by the treachery of McDougall 
and McKenzie, had put within their power. The 
canny Scotchmen, JNIcDougall, McTavish, JNIcKenzie, 
JMcDonald, and the various other Macs who now 
guided the plans of the North-westers, signalled their 
entrance into power by despatching companies to the 
various pivotal points of the great Columbia Basin, 
the Walla Walla, Yakima, Okanogan, Spokane, and 
Snake rivers. Two incidents may be related to illustrate 
the character of people and the conditions of that 
wilderness period. 

A party of ninety men in ten canoes left Astoria 
for up-river points on April 4, 1814. While passing 
the mouth of the Yakima, about three hundred and 



126 The Columbia River 

fifty miles up the River, the men were surprised to 
see three canoes putting out from shore and to hear 
a child's voice calling out, " Arretez done! arretez 
done!" Stopping to investigate, the party found in 
one of the boats the Indian wife of Pierre Dorion, 
with her children. Dorion, with five other Canadians, 
had gone the previous summer with a party under 
command of John Reed of the Astor Company. 
While trapping and hunting, deep in the mountains 
of Snake River, the party had been massacred by 
Indians. The woman and her two boj^s had alone es- 
caped the massacre. It was the dead of winter and 
the snows lay deep on the Blue Mountains. But the 
wife of Dorion found shelter in a remote fastness of 
the mountains, putting up a bark hut for a shelter 
and subsisting on the carcasses of some of her horses. 
In the spring, the pitiful little company of mother 
and children descended to Walla Walla and found 
there more kindly disposed natives, who cared for 
them and turned them over to the protection of the 
whites. A more thrilling story of suffering and 
heroism than this of JMadame Dorion and her children 
has never come up from the chronicles of the mid 
West. 

Equally illustrative of the life of the fur-traders 
is the account given by Alexander Ross of one of his 
many adventures in the Columbia country. In 1814 
Ross went from Okanogan to Yakima to secure horses. 
With him were four other whites and three Indian 
women. The Yakima Valley was then as now a 
paradise of the Indians. There the tribes gathered 
by the thousands in the spring to dig camas, to race 
horses, and to gamble, as well as to form alliances and 



The Fur-Traders and their Stations 127 

make plans for war. When the Httle company of 
traders reached the encampment, they discovered to 
their astonishment that it was a veritable city. Six 
thousand men, women, and children, with ten thou- 
sand horses, and uncounted dogs and many shackled 
bears and wolves, were strewn across the plain. It 
was a dangerous situation for the traders, for it be- 
came plain to them that the Indians were unfriendly. 
But assuming an air of careless bravado, Ross pro- 
ceeded to display his store of trinkets for the purpose 
of starting a traffic in horses. Assuming a very hila- 
rious manner the Indians would seize and drive away 
the animals as fast as the white men got them. Then 
the Indians began to deprive them of clothes and food. 
Finally they made ready to seize their three women 
as slaves. Ross managed to have the women escape 
temporarily, but then the savages were worse than 
ever. Matters reached a crisis when an obstreperous 
chief named Yaktana snatched a knife from the hands 
of one of the Canadians. A desperate struggle was 
just at the point of breaking out, which would in- 
evitably have resulted in the death of all the white 
men, when a sudden intuition flashed through the 
quick mind of Ross, and rushing between the combat- 
ants he handed his own knife, a much more elegant 
one, to Yaktana, saying in a friendly tone, " This is 
a chief's knife. Take it and give back the other." 
There was an instant revulsion. Yaktana was so 
much flattered that he turned at once into a stanch 
supporter of the shrewd trader. Food was brought. 
The horses were restored. Equipment was provided. 
The three women were regained, and the company 
made their way without further trouble to Okanogan. 



128 The Columbia River 

We have already mentioned the important fact 
that in 1821 the two great Canadian Companies, the 
North-western and the Hudson's Bay, decided to 
unite. With the union, the great era of fur-trade in 
the Columbia Basin fairly began, to continue about 
twenty-five years, yielding then to the American im- 
migrant. That twenty-five years of the dominance of 
the great Fur Company contained nearly all the 
poetry and romance as well as the profit and stateman- 
ship of the business. The entire region of the River, 
as well as that of the Puget Sound country, was 
mapped out in a most systematic manner with one 
chief central fort, Vancouver on the Columbia. A 
more magnificent location for the purpose cannot be 
conceived. It is now the site of a flourishing city and 
of the United States Fort Headquarters for the North- 
west, generally conceded to be the finest fort location 
in the United States. Fort Vancouver was estab- 
lished in 1825 upon a superb bench of land gently 
sloping back from the River for two miles. Great 
trees fringed the site, Mt. Hood lifted its pinnacled 
majesty sixty miles to the eastward, the sinuous 
mazes of the Willamette Valley stretched out far 
southward, while the lordly River w^as in full view a 
dozen miles up and down. Efvery natural advantage 
and delight which wild nature could offer w^as here in 
fullness. Ships could readily ascend the hundred 
miles from the ocean to unload their merchandise and 
take on their cargoes of precious furs, the furs col- 
lected at the outlay of so much toil and suffering over 
the area of hundreds of miles. Every species of game 
and fish abounded in the waters and along the banks 
of the River. Deer and elk tossed their antlers be- 



f 



- • •'g?,v.-,v „■ .^i% .■«;■''?:■ 




Fort Vancouver in 1845. 



The Fur-Traders and their Stations 129 

tween the stately firs of the upland, and pheasant and 
grouse whirred among the branches. Geese, cranes, 
ducks, and swans, in countless numbers, darkened the 
lagoons amid the many islands enclosed by the mouths 
of the Willamette and the adjacent waters of the 
larger stream. Fish of many varieties, the royal 
Chinook salmon, king of food fish, being at the head 
in beauty and edibility, though surpassed in size by 
the gigantic sturgeon, which sometimes weighed a 
thousand pounds, abounded in the River. No epicure 
of the w^orld's capitals could command such viands as 
nature brought to the doors of the denizens of Fort 
Vancouver. 

The fort itself was laid out on a scale of ampli- 
tude suitable to the spaciousness of the site. It was 
enclosed with a picket wall tw^enty feet high, w^ith mas- 
sive buttresses of timber inside. This enclosure was 
a parallelogram seven hundred and fifty by five hun- 
dred feet. Inside w^ere about forty buildings, the 
governor's residence of generous dimensions being in 
the centre. Two chapels provided for the spiritual 
needs of the company, while schoolhouse, stores, 
" bachelors' halls," and shops of various kinds at- 
tested the variety of the needs. Along the bank of 
the River, outside the enclosure, lay quite a village of 
cottages for the married employees, together wdth 
hospital, boathouses, granaries, warehouses, threshing 
mills, and dairy buildings. 

Taken altogether Fort Vancouver w^as the model 
fort of the western slope. Moreover, the fertile soil 
I and genial, humid climate soon encouraged the fac- 
tors of the Company to experiment with gardens and 
orchards, and, within a few years after founding, fif- 



130 The Columbia River 

teen hundred acres of land were in the finest state of 
productivity, while three thousand head of cattle, 
twenty-five hundred sheep, three hundred brood mares, 
and over a hundred milch cows, added their bounteous 
contributions to the already plentiful resources of 
the fort. 

With this rich larder, with the spacious buildings, 
with the annual arrivals and departures of ships by 
sea and fleets of bateaux by river, with hunting trips 
and Indian policies, with the intercoast traffic with the 
Russians on the north and the Spaniards on the south, 
— there was as much to engage and delight the minds 
of these people as if they had lived in the heart of 
civilisation. 

Any account of Fort Vancouver would be incom- 
plete without some reference to Dr. John McLoughlin, 
chief factor of the Company in the Columbia district 
from 1824 to the time of his retirement from the 
Company in 1846 and settlement at Oregon City, 
Oregon, as an American citizen. Rarely has any one 
in the stormy history of the Columbia Basin received ' 
such unvarying and unqualified praise as has this 
truly great man. Physically, mentally, and morally. 
Dr. McLoughlin was altogether exceptional among 
the mixed population that gathered about the emporium 
of the traders. Six feet four inches in height, his 
noble and expressive face crowned with a great cas- 
cade of snowy hair, firm yet kindly, prompt and 
businesslike yet sympathetic and helpful, *' White 
Eagle," as the Indians called him, was a true-born 
king of men. 

We have said that Fort Vancouver was the great 
central fort. The others commanding the pivotal 



The Fur-Traders and their Stations 131 

points upon the River and its tributaries were Fort 
Hall and Fort Boise on the Snake, Spokane House 
on the Spokane near the present metropolis of the 
Inland Empire, Fort Colville on the river of the same 
name near its junction with the Columbia, Fort Okano- 
gan at the junction of the stream of that name with 
the great River, Fort Owen in the Coeur d'Alene 
region, Fort Simcoe in the Yakima country. Fort 
Walla Walla, first known as Fort Nez Perce, on the 
Columbia at the mouth of the Walla Walla, and Fort 
George on the former site of Astoria. These forts 
were all laid out in the same general fashion as Fort 
Vancouver, though no one was so large, elaborate, or 
comfortable. Besides the forts there were a number 
of small trading posts. The chief furs procured in 
the interior were beaver, and those on the coast were 
sea-otter. Many others, as the mink, sharp-toothed 
otter, fox, lynx, raccoon, were found in abundance. 

The profits of the business were immense. Alex- 
ander Ross relates that he secured one morning be- 
fore breakfast one hundred and ten beaver skins for 
a single yard of white cloth. Ross spent one hun- 
dred and eighty-eight days alone in the Yakima coun- 
try. During that time he collected one thousand five 
hundred and fifty beavers, besides other peltries, worth 
in the Canton market two thousand two hundred and 
fifty pounds, which cost him in his objects of trade 
only thirty-five pounds. That was while Ross was 
connected with the Astor Company. 

In completing this necessarily hurried chapter on 
the fascinating era of the fur-traders, we cannot omit 
a brief reference to the movements of the regular 
brigades of boats up and down the River, for these 



132 The Columbia River 

comprised a great part of both the business and the 
romance of the age. The course of these brigades 
was from the southern shores of Hudson Bay, through 
Manitoba, to the crest of the Rockies at the head of 
the Columbia. Water was utilised to the greatest 
possible extent, while at the portages and across the 
mountains horse-power and man-power were employed. 
Once afloat upon the Columbia, the brigades braved 
most of the rapids, paying occasional toll of men and 
goods to the envious deities of the waters, yet with 
marvellous skill and general fortune making their 
way down the thousand or more miles from Boat En- 
campment to Fort Vancouver. The descent was easy 
compared with the ascent. The first journey of the 
east-bound brigade of the North-westers from As- 
toria to Montreal was in 1814, and it required the 
time from April 4th to INIay 11th to reach the mouth 
of Canoe River, the point at which they entered upon 
the mountain climb to the head of the Athabasca. 

The boatmen were French-Canadians, a hardy, 
mercurial, light-hearted race, half French, with the 
natural grace and politeness of their race, and having 
the pleasant patois which has made them the theme of 
much popular present-daj^ literature. They were half 
Indian, either in tastes and manners or in blood, with 
the atmosphere of forests and streams clinging to 
every word and gesture. They were perhaps the best 
boatmen in the world. Upon those matchless lakes 
into which the Columbia and its tributaries expand at 
intervals the fur-laden boats would glide at ease, while 
the wild songs of the coureurs des hois would echo 
from shore to shore in lazy sibilations, apparently be- 
tokening no thought of serious or earnest business. 



The Fur-Traders and their Stations 133 

But once the rapids were reached, the gay and rolHck- 
ing knight of the paddle became all attention. With 
keen eyes fixed on every swirl or rock, he guided the 
light craft with a ready skill which would be incon- 
ceivable to one less daring and experienced. The 
brigades would run almost all the rapids from Death 
Rapids to the sea, making portages at Kettle Falls, 
Tumwater or Celilo Falls, and the Cascades, though 
at some stages of the water they could descend the last 
two. They always had to carry around those points 
in ascending the River. In spite of all the skill of 
the voyageurs the Columbia and the Snake, the Pend 
Oreille and the Kootenai have exacted a heavy toll of 
life from those who have laid their compelling hands 
upon the white manes of chute and cataract. Many, 
even of the voyageurs, are the human skeletons 
that have whitened the volcanic beds of the great 
streams. 

The boats used by the fur brigades were either log 
canoes obtained of the Indians or bateaux. The 
former were hollowed from the magnificent cedars 
Mhich grew on the banks of the River, sometimes 
fifty or sixty feet long, with prow carved in fantastic, 
even beautiful fashion. They would hold from six to 
twenty persons with from half a ton to two or three 
tons of load, yet were so light that two men could 
carry one of the medium size while four could handle 
one of any size around a portage. But the voyageurs 
never took quite so much to the canoes as did the In- 
dians, w^hose skill in handling them in high waves is 
described by Ross and Franchere as something as- 
tonishing. And even the Indians of the present show 
much the same ability, though the splendid cedar 



134 The Columbia River 

canoes are no longer made, and only here and there 
can one of the picturesque survivors be seen. 

The bateaux were boats of peculiar shape, being 
built very high and broad so that in an unloaded con- 
dition they seemed to rest on the water almost like a 
paper shell. Both ends were high and pointed as 
prows. They were propelled with oars and steered 
with paddles. One of the usual size was about thirty 
feet long and five feet wide. Being of light-draft, 
double-enders, capable of holding large loads and yet 
easily conveyed around portages, more steady and 
roomy than canoes, these bateaux were the typical 
Columbia River medium of commerce during the era 
of the fur-traders. They, too, have mainly vanished 
from the scenes of their former glory. Canoes, ba- 
teaux, cries and yells of Indians, songs of voyageurs, 
have gone into the engulfing limbo of the bj^gone, 
along with the keen-eyed Scotch factor and the sharp- 
featured Yankee skipper. Yet the swans and geese 
and ducks still darken the more placid expanses of 
the River and the salmon still start the widening cir- 
cles in almost undiminished numbers, while the gla- 
ciated heights of Hood and Adams and St. Helens 
(we would rather say Wiyeast, Klickitat, and Loo wit) 
still stand guard over the unchanging waters. 

This part of our topic has mainly centred upon 
the British possession of the River. A full history of 
the fur era on the River would demand a chapter 
on the later attempts of three remarkable men to re- 
establish American interests in the disputed territory. 
These men were Jedediah Smith, Capt. E. L. Bon- 
neville, and Nathaniel J. Wyeth. But though these 
men belong properly to this era, their efforts in the 



i^i;i 







Astoria in 1845. 
From an Old Print. 




Astoria, Looking up and across the Columbia River, 
Photo, by Woodfield. 



The Fur-Traders and their Stations 135 

fur-trade were relatively unimportant in comparison 
with the influence of their lives in the direction of per- 
manent American occupation. It seemed the appoint- 
ment of destiny that the American should play second 
fiddle to his British rival in the fur-trade. But as 
tenfold, a thousandfold compensation, the American 
farmers, home-builders, and tradesmen were to ac- 
quire final possession of one of the goodliest lands on 
which the Stars and Stripes have ever floated. The 
bateaux and canoes must needs give way to the steam- 
boat and the launch, the coureur des hois to the lum- 
berman and the miner and farmer, and the picturesque 
emporium of the British fur-trader on the River to 
the modern American city. We shall, therefore, more 
fittingly chronicle the later American fur-traders as 
a part of the march of their countrymen to permanent 
ownership of Oregon. 



CHAPTER VI 

The Coming of the Missionaries to the Tribes of the 

River 

Journey of the Nez Perce Chiefs to Find the White Man's Book of 
Life — Interest Excited among Christian People by this Event 
— Methodist Church Leads in Preparing for a Missionary Party 
— Jason Lee and his Mission near Chemeketa — The Reinforcement 
by the Lausanne — Importance of Jason Lee as a Force in Oregon 
History — The Missions of the American Board at Walla Walla, 
Lapwai, and Tshimakain — Preliminary Journey of Whitman and 
Parker in 1835 — The Wedding Journey from Missouri to the 
Columbia in 1836 — Dr. Whitman and his Associates and their 
Traits of Character — On the Summit of South Pass — Whitman's 
Waggon — Arrival at Vancouver and Conference with McLoughlin 
— Locations of the Missionaries — Reinforcement in 1838 — Friend- 
ship of the Nez Perces — First Printing Press — Whitman's Ride 
in 1842-43 — The Catholic Missions — Fathers Blanchet, Demers, 
and De Smet — Influence of the Missions. 

IN 1832 a strange thing happened. Four Indians 
appeared in St. Louis seeking the " White Plan's 
Book of Life." At that time General Wilham 
Clark was superintendent of Indian affairs, located 
at St. Louis. He was familiar with the Western 
Indians and had greatly sympathised with them. 

Learning of these strange Indians and their 
stranger quest, General Clark sought them, and en- 
tered into communication with them. It is usually 
stated that these Indians were Flatheads from the 
Pend Oreille region, but Miss Kate Macbeth, a mis- 
sionary for many years to the Nez Perces, became 

136 



The Coming of the Missionaries 137 

convinced that three were Nez Perces and the fourth 
a Flathead. How they had learned that the white 
man had a " Book of Life " is not known. Captain 
Bonneville's journal states that Pierre Pambrun had 
given many of the Oregon Indians instruction in the 
rudiments of the Catholic worship. Some have con- 
jectured that Jedediah Smith, a noted American 
trapper, and, most remarkable of all, a devout Chris- 
tian, may have imparted religious thoughts to them. 
]VIiss Macbeth believed that the motive of the mission 
was to find Lewis and Clark, the explorers, whose 
visit in 1804-05 had produced a profound impression 
on the Nez Perces. The first published account of 
these four Indians appeared in the New York Christian 
Advocate for March 1, 1833. This was in the form 
of a letter from G. P. Disoway, in which he enclosed 
a letter to himself from his agent, William Walker, 
an interpreter for the Wyandotte Indians. Walker 
was at St. Louis at the time, and met these four 
Indians in General Clark's office. He was much im- 
pressed with their appearance, and learned that General 
Clark had given them as full an account as possible 
of the nature and history of man, of the advent of 
the Saviour, and of His work for men. Walker states 
that two of the four men died in St. Louis, and as to 
whether the others reached their native land he did 
not know. 

In the Illinois Patriot of October, 1833, the same 
topic was taken up, together with the statement that 
Walker's report had excited so much interest that a 
committee of the Illinois Synod had been appointed 
to investigate and report on what seemed the duty of 
the churches in the premises. The committee accord- 



138 The Columbia River 

ingly went to St. Louis and confirmed the account by 
conference with General Clark. They also made it an 
object to learn all available facts in regard to the 
general conditions among the Indians west of the 
Rocky JMountains. 

One of the most valuable records in respect to these 
Indians is from George Catlin, the noted painter and 
student of Indian life. Catlin w^as on the steamer 
going up the JNIissouri toward Fort Benton with these 
two remaining Indians on their homeward journey. 
His account of them in the Smithsonian Report for 
1885 is thus: 

These two men, when I painted them, were in beautiful 
Sioux dresses which had been presented to them in a talk 
with the Sioux, who treated them very kindly, while passing 
through the Sioux country. These two men were part of a 
delegation that came across the mountains to St. Louis, a 
few years since, to inquire for the truth of representation 
which they said some white man had made among them, that 
our religion was better than theirs, and that they would all 
be lost if they did not embrace it. Two old and venerable 
men of this party died in St. Louis, and I travelled two thou- 
sand miles, companion with these two fellows, toward their 
own country, and became much pleased with their manners 
and dispositions. When I first heard the objects of their ex- 
traordinary mission across the mountains, I could scarcely 
believe it; but, on conversing with General Clark on a future 
occasion, I was fully convinced of the fact. 

It appears from still another account of the matter 
that the two surviving Indians were disappointed in 
that they did not actually get possession of the 
" Book." A speech of one of the chiefs as he left 
General Clark has been published in a number of books, 
and is well worthy of preservation. It should be 



The Coming of the Missionaries 139 

stated, however, that this speech has no authentic 
source, nor does it appear anywhere how it was ob- 
tained. It is commonly stated that it was " taken 
down " at the time by one of the clerks in General 
Clark's office. First given in newspapers and lec- 
tures by the INIissionary Spalding, it seems to have 
grown by repetition until it appears in what may be 
considered its final form in Barrows' Oregon. But, 
though not to be regarded as an accurate transcrip- 
tion, it possesses certain elements of interest and 
it may well be given here. This is the reported 
speech : 

I come to you over the trail of many moons from the set- 
ting sun. You were the friend of my fathers, who have all 
gone the long way. I came with an eye partly open for my 
people, who sit in darkness. I go back with both eyes closed. 
How can I go back blind, to my blind people? I made my 
way to you with strong arms through many enemies and 
strange lands that I might carry back much to them. I go 
back with both arms broken and empty. Two fathers came 
with us. They were the braves of many winters and wars. 
We leave them asleep here by your great water and wig- 
wams. They were tired in many moons and their moccasins 
wore out. 

My people sent me to get the White Man's Book of 
Heaven. You took me to where you allow your women to 
dance, as we do not ours, and the book was not there. You 
took me to where they worship the great Spirit with candles, 
and the book was not there. Y"ou showed me images of the 
good spirits and the pictures of the good land beyond, but 
the book was not among them to tell us the way. I am going 
back the long and sad trail to my people in the dark land. 
You make my feet heavy with gifts and my moccasins will 
grow old in carrying them, yet the book is not among them. 
When I tell my poor blind people after one more snow, in the 
big council, that I did not bring the book, no word will be 



I40 The Columbia River 

spoken by our old men or by our young braves. One by one 
they will rise up and go out in silence. My people will die 
in darkness, and they will go on a long path to other hunting 
grounds. No white man will go with them, and no White 
Man's Book to make the way plain. I have no more words. 

Taken altogether, it may be said that this event, i 
as preserved in these various ways, constitutes one of 
the most pleasing and significant, though pathetic, 
incidents in Indian history. It was, moreover, preg- * 
nant with results. It might almost be said that it 
was the key to American possession of Oregon. For 
upon the acquisition of the story by the Christian 
people of the United States, there rose an immediate 
demand that something be done to carry the Gospel 
to the Indians of the Oregon country. This story 
was interpreted as a Macedonian cry. The period 
was one of strong religious feeling, as well as mis- 
sionary zeal. The warm-hearted followers of the Cross 
felt at once that here was a providential opening to 
honour that Cross and to advance its kingdom upon 
the western border of civilisation. 

The Methodist Church was first to take up the 
work of sending forth missionaries to the Oregon In- 
dians. To Wilbur Fiske of Wesleyan University 
seems due the credit of the first move. He enlisted 
the interest of Jason Lee, a former student at Wil- 
braham Academy, but then engaged in missionary 
work in the province of Quebec. Lee was a tall, 
athletic young man, full of zeal and consecration, not 
polished or graceful in manner, but powerful in spirit. 
He grasped at once the great possibilities in the pro- 
position of Dr. Fiske, and, going to Boston, became 
appointed by the New England Conference as superin- 



The Coming of the Missionaries 141 

tendent of a mission to Oregon. Daniel Lee, Cyrus 
Shepard, and P. L. Edwards were named his 
associates. 

In 1834, this mission band learned that Nathaniel 
Wyeth, famous as a fur-trader, was expecting to cross 
the continent, sending his goods by the brig May 
Dacre to the Columbia River. Such an opportunity 
was too favourable to be lost, and the JNIethodist 
Board at once opened negotiations with Captain Wyeth, 
with the result that this first missionary company to 
Oregon went with him and arrived safely at Van- 
couver on the Columbia, the headquarters of the Hud- 
son's Bay Company. The May Dacre reached her 
destination soon after, and thus Mr. Lee and his 
comrades found themselves at the threshold of their 
labours. The first intention had been to locate among 
the Nez Perces and Flatheads, the ones from whom 
the JNIacedonian cry had gone up. But Dr. JNIcLough- 
lin, the chief factor at Vancouver, who had received 
them with the utmost interest and cordiality, per- 
suaded them that the Willamette Valley would be a 
more promising field. Its advantages were obvious. 
It was directly on water navigation to the sea, and 
within easy distance of it. It was so near the chief 
entrepot of the Hudson's Bay Company as to be com- 
paratively safe and accessible to all mails. The valley 
was of extraordinary scenic charm and salubrious 
climate. The natives, moreover, seemed more tract- 
able and peaceful than those of the upper valley. 
Accordingly the INIethodist brethren ascended the 
Willamette to a point near a group of farms which 
had been located by French employees of the Hudson's 
Bay Company on what is known now as French 



142 The Columbia River 

Prairie. One of these Frenchmen was Joseph Ger- 
vais, and from him the subsequent town of Gervais 
was named. The mission was located on the Willa- 
mette near Chemawa, the present site of the United 
States Indian School. It was ten miles north of 
Chemeketa, which was the great Indian Council 
Ground, or Peace Ground, from which fact the mis- 
sionary applied to it the name of Salem, — a change 
of name more commendable for piety than for taste. 

Jason Lee set to work at once with zeal, patience, 
and intelligence, to inaugurate the work to which he 
had consecrated his life. At times his efforts seemed 
to be well rewarded. Then pestilence would attack 
the Indians, followed by suspicion and excitement, as 
a result of which all the gains would be lost. The 
work among the whites and their half-breed families 
was more encouraging than that with the Indians. 
Most Indians have been inconstant and unreliable 
in respect to religious instruction. 

In 1837 a strong reinforcement arrived, among 
whom was Dr. Elijah White, destined to become a 
man of note as Superintendent of Indian affairs. 

In 1838, Rev. Daniel Lee and Rev. H. K. W. Per- 
kins established a new station at Wascopum, now the 
location of The Dalles. In the same year Jason Lee re- 
turned East to secure an addition to the mission. His 
efforts were crowned with success. Five missionaries, 
one physician, six mechanics, four farmers, one stew- 
ard, and four female teachers, with a number unclassi- 
fied, — in all thirty-six adults and seventeen children, — 
reached the Columbia River on the good ship Lausanne, 
under charge of Captain Spalding, on May 21, 1840. 
This was the most notable company that had yet 



The Coming of the Missionaries 143 

reached our Great River. Among them were men 
and women who contributed in a great degree to the 
subsequent growth of Oregon. Of the number were 
Revs. Gustavus Hines, Alvin Waller, J. P. Richmond, 
and J. H. Frost; Dr. Ira L. Babcock, George Aber- 
nethy, afterwards governor of the territory, J. L. 
Parrish, and L. H. Judson. All the men were ac- 
companied by their wives, and most of them had 
children. They were, in short, the advance guard of 
the American home-builders in Oregon, and as such 
they deserve a special place -on the roll of honour. 

With this added force, it was possible to enlarge 
the work, in both secular and religious lines, both 
among the whites and the Indians. A mission was 
started at Clatsop on the south side of the mouth of 
the Columbia under ]Mr. Parrish, one at the falls of 
the Willamette, and another on Tualatin Plains, under 
INIr. Hines, while still another was located by Mr. 
Richmond at Nisqually on Puget Sound. 

As time passed on, it became more and more evi- 
dent that this work was to become less for Indians 
and more for the incoming whites. The whole as- 
pect of it changed. The Methodist Board in New 
England decided that they were not justified in 
maintaining the missions, and these were discontinued 
during the decade of the forties. 

Out of the mission at Chemeketa grew Willamette 
University, one of the most prominent educational 
institutions of Oregon. 

Jason Lee returned to the East and died in 
Canada in 1845. His life, though short, was heroic 
and influential. He looms large on the background 
of the history of the Columbia. In brief retrospect, 



144 The Columbia River 

it may be said of him that he combined rehgious zeal 
with shrewd common sense and capacity to see and 
adapt himself to the business and political conditions 
of his time and place. This capacity is illustrated 
by his shrewd management of a bold and enterprising 
character named Ewing Young. This man was about 
starting a distillery in the Willamette Valley. Know- 
ing the ruinous effects of intoxicants on Indians, the 
missionaries strongly opposed the enterprise. But 
knowing also that Young was a man of force and 
capacity and much more valuable as a friend than as an 
enemy, Mr. Lee accomplished the abandonment of the 
distillery by indirection, and at the same time gained 
one of the most important steps in the development 
of the country. For he induced Young to undertake 
the great work of driving into the Willamette Valley 
a large herd of cattle from California. To the settlers 
beginning to locate on the fat pasture land along the 
Willamette and its tributaries, this was a stage in 
history of priceless moment. Up to that time the 
only cattle in the country belonged to the Hudson's 
Bay Company and it was not their policy to encourage 
American settlers. 

Another fact in connection with Jason Lee con- 
stitutes a landmark in the history of American ac- 
quisition of Oregon. This was a memorial prepared 
by him, with the assistance of P. L. Edwards and 
David Leslie, and signed by practically all the adult 
men then accessible in the Willamette Valley, thirty- 
six in number, addressed to the United States Con- 
gress and praying that the Government would 
consider the importance of the Columbia River 
country and the question of acquisition. This me- 



The Coming of the Missionaries i45 

morlal was dated March 16, 1838, and was taken 
by INIr. Lee to the East and given to Senator 
Linn of Missouri, in January, 1839. Senator Linn 
was so aroused over the boundless possibilities offered 
to westward expansion that he introduced a bill in the 
Senate calling for the establishment of Oregon Ter- 
ritory and the occupation of it by the military forces 
of the United States. Though this bill did not be- 
come a law, it constituted a rallying cry for the 
friends of American possession, which had results of 
utmost importance. 

In short, to Jason Lee, more than to any other 
one, unless we except Dr. Marcus Whitman, of whom 
we shall speak later, must be attributed the inauguration 
of that remarkable chain of causes and effects, a long 
line of sequences, by which Oregon and our Pacific 
Coast in general became American possessions^ and 
the international destiny of our nation was secured. 

From the Methodist missions of Lower Columbia 
we turn to the Presbyterian and Congregational mis- 
sions of the upper River and its tributaries. The 
American Board of Foreign Missions was at that 
time under the joint control of three religious 
bodies, Presbyterian, Congregational, and Dutch Re- 
formed. At the instance of the last named body, the 
Board in 1835 commissioned Rev. Samuel Parker of 
Ithaca, N. Y., and 3Iarcus Whitman, JNI.D., of 
Rushville, N. Y., to make a reconnaissance of the 
country of the Columbia, with the view of a mission. 
Under the protection of the American Fur Company, 
the two spiritual prospectors journeyed as far as 
Green River. There deciding that what they learned 
of the land beyond the Rocky Mountains warranted 



146 The Columbia River 

the carrying out of the missionary project, they de- 
termined to part company, Dr. Whitman returning 
to the " States " for reinforcements, and Dr. Parker 
going onward through Oregon to the mouth of the 
Columbia, and proceeding thence by ship to Hono- 
lulu, whence he returned by water to his home. Dr. 
Parker was an elderly man, somewhat pedantic and 
notional in his ways, but withal full of energy and 
zeal in the cause. He M^as not so popular with trappers 
and frontiersmen as his companion. For Whitman 
was a young, athletic man, capable of any degree of 
fatigue, very ready in proffering his professional or 
other services to those in need. There was a bon- 
hommie and general disregard of the conventionalities 
in Whitman that caused the rough spirits of the 
border to " take to " him at once, while they rather 
looked askance at the more straight-laced ecclesiastic. 
But Parker was a man worthy of all respect for his 
qualities both of mind and purpose. He was a keen 
observer, and has left us, as his contribution to his- 
tory, his Travels beyond the Rocky Mountains, one 
of the most readable and valuable books of travel in 
our western literature. His journey was, in fact, the 
first one across the continent, after that of Lewis and 
Clark, which produced a book of high standard. 

Dr. Whitman made his way at once to his home 
in New York, accompanied by two Nez Perce In- 
dians. Arriving late on Saturday night he stopped 
with his brother, and no one else of the village knew 
of his arrival, until at the hour of service the next 
morning, he appeared in the aisle followed by his two 
Indians. His appearance was so like that of an ap- 
parition that his usually staid and proper mother lost 



The Coming of the Missionaries i47 

her head entirely, and leaped to her feet, shouting 
" Why, there is INIarcus ! " The equilibrium of the 
meeting was for the time almost destroyed. 

Within a few months, Dr. Whitman was married 
to Narcissa Prentiss. He persuaded Rev. H. H. 
Spalding and wife, who had hitherto planned to go 
as missionaries to the Osage Indians, to join them 
for Oregon. W. H. Gray was secured to go with 
the party as secular manager. 

And now began the famous " Wedding Journey " 
from New York to the banks of the Columbia. It 
included within itself the romance, the pathos, the de- 
votion, the heroism, and at the last, the tragedy of 
missions. 

The History of Oregon, by W. H. Gray, is the 
chief original authority for this journey, though the 
women of the party kept journals which are of great 
value. It would seem that all the members of the 
party were of marked personality. Dr. Whitman 
was a tall, spare man, with deep blue eyes, wide 
mouth, iron-grey hair, of inflexible resolution, and 
very set when his mind was once made up, though 
flexible and even variable till that point had been 
reached. He was of enormous physical strength and 
endurance, with a constitution, as one who knew him 
later told the writer, " like a saw-mill." 

Mrs. Whitman was a woman of liberal education 
for those times, large, fair-haired, blue-eyed, dignified, 
and somewhat reserved (rather " starchy," the moun- 
tain men thought her), very ladylike, refined, and at- 
tractive. One of the pathetic and interesting things 
about her is related by JNIrs. Martha J. Lamb in the 
Magazine of American History, in 1884. This re- 



148 The Columbia River 

lates the fact that the church of which Miss Prentiss 
(Mrs. Whitman) was a member in Plattsburg, N. Y., 
held a farewell service for her, and in the course of 
it the minister gave out the hymn: 

Yes, my native land, I love thee, 
All thy scenes, I love them well; 
Friends, connections, happy country, 
Can I bid you all farewell. 

The entire congregation joined heartily in singing, 
but before the hymn was ended voice after voice was 
choked with sobs, and in the last words the clear, 
sweet soprano voice of Miss Prentiss was heard alone, 
unwavering, like a peal of triumph. 

Mr. Spalding was a very different man from Dr. 
Whitman and has not been so well treated by his- 
torians. He is said to have been more nervous and 
crotchety, though of remarkable industry and intense 
likes and dislikes, which he never scrupled to express 
in vigorous fashion. The fact remains, however, that 
his mission was altogether the most successful of all 
those founded in Oregon. 

Mrs. Spalding was tall, dark, rather coarse fea- 
tured, and of fragile health. It is truly wonderful 
that with such a handicap she should have been able 
to accomplish the arduous journey to Oregon. She 
was less fastidious and reserved than Mrs. Whitman 
and adopted the policy of taking the habits and 
manners of the Indians in greater degree, whereas her 
more dignified sister believed in the policy of trying 
to raise the Indians to her own level. The Indians 
therefore understood Mrs. Spalding better. The In- 
dians always desired the privilege of entering Mrs. 



The Comino^ of the Missionaries 149 



Whitman's private room unannounced, and, if pos- 
sible, of seeing her at her bath or toilette. Her na- 
tural objection to such intrusion was a chronic grievance 
which resulted in the suspicion by the Indians that she 
was plotting against them. 

W. H. Gray, the secular agent, was a young, fine- 
looking, daring, and athletic man, very skilful in 
making and handling boats, teams, waggons, and any- 
thing else of a practical nature. He was so positive 
and even violent in his views as to alienate many with 
w^hom he came in contact. Yet he was one of the 
manliest men that ever came to Oregon, and was in- 
timately connected with nearly every important event 
in the history of the Columbia River, navigation in- 
cluded. His four sons, all born in Oregon, became 
steamboat captains and pilots, and without question, 
no one family has been so intimately associated with 
the River as has the Gray family. If any one group 
of people could be said to have filed a claim on the 
River, it is the family of W. H. Gra}^. Gray's his- 
tory is of high value, yet so intense was his hatred of 
the Hudson's Bay Company and of the British in 
general, as well as of Roman Catholics, that his book 
has been subjected to unsparing criticism by later 
writers. 

The little missionary band of five, accompanied by 
the two Nez Perce Indians who had gone East with 
Whitman the year before, joined the westbound cara- 
van of the American Fur Company, and journe^^ed 
with them the greater part of the way. One of the 
most thrilling and suggestive moments in their journey 
was when they stood on the summit of the Rockies at 
South Pass. There they looked down the westward 



15° The Columbia River 

maze of mountains and valleys drained by the Snake 
River and its tributaries as these swept west to join the 
Columbia and thence proceed to the Pacific. With 
that vision before them, they spread the Stars and 
Stripes to the breeze, and, kneeling upon the turf, they 
took possession of the great unknown to the westward 
in the name of God and the American Union. Nobly 
was the claim maintained, though with it came the 
crown of martyrdom. 

Whitman desired above all other things to demon- 
strate the feasibility of a waggon road to the Paci- 
fic. He therefore insisted on taking his waggon, — 
'' Chick-chick-shaile-kikash/' the Indians called it, in 
attempted onomatopoeia. His demonstration was suc- 
cessful, though the trouble w^as infinite. He was com- 
pelled to leave the waggon at the Hudson's Bay Fort 
on the Boise, near the present site of Boise City, 
with the intention of getting it the next year. The 
Hudson's Bay people used every effort to discourage 
Whitman in his waggon enterprise, though according 
to Gray, they made much use of the vehicle in their 
fort. 

On September 2, 1836, the mission party reached 
the Hudson's Bay Company's fort at the mouth of the 
Walla Walla, a little more than four months and two 
thousand two hundred miles from the banks of the 
Missouri to those of the Columbia. 

But the journey was not complete, for their definite 
location must yet be selected. They proceeded now in 
bateaux down the Great River to Vancouver, the 
headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company's empire. 
There Dr. McLoughlin, the chief factor, met them with 
his own peculiar cordiality, and yet with the dignity 



The Coming of the Missionaries 151 

befitting the head of so great an estabhshment. He 
M'as a noble man, and though business considerations 
and the orders of the directors of the company would 
have led him to " freeze out " the Americans, yet hu- 
manity and his own genial nature forbade him to with- 
hold the cordial hand from the mission band. The 
fort and two ships in the river were arrayed in gala 
attire in honour of the event. Dr. McLoughlin did 
the honours of his spacious hall to Mrs. Whitman and 
Mrs. Spalding in a style that would have graced a 
baronial mansion. 

By Dr. JNIcLoughlin's advice, since the Methodist 
mission had been located in the Willamette Valley, 
Whitman decided to establish himself among the Cay- 
uses in the beautiful and fertile valley of the Walla 
Walla, at Waiilatpu, the " Place of the Rye-grass." 
Spalding accepted the urgent appeal of the Nez 
Perces to go a hundred and twenty-five miles east- 
ward to Lapwai on the Clearwater, near the modern 
site of Lewiston. Both stations were fair to look 
upon, with every natural advantage. It proved, how- 
ever, that the Cayuses were fierce and intractable, 
while the Nez Perces, though warlike and manly, were 
also docile, ambitious to learn, and predisposed to 
friendly relations with the Americans. 

In 1838, the American Board of Foreign Mis- 
sions sent a reinforcement to the field, consisting of 
Revs. Elkanah Walker, Cushing Eells, A. B. Smith, 
and their wives. ]Mr. Gray, who had returned the 
previous year in order to organise this reinforcement, 
had found a wife, and with her was now accompanying 
this second missionary band to Oregon. 

Messrs. Walker and Eells located at Tshimakain, 



152 The Columbia River 

on what is now called Walker's Prairie, near Spokane. 
Mr. Smith went to Kamiah up the Clearwater, about 
sixty miles from Mr. Spalding's station at Lapwai. 

Time fails to speak of the many interesting events 
marking each of the missions. They were all located 
in singularly attractive spots, and every one of the 
missionaries made great progress in cultivating the 
ground, building mills, houses, and fences, and interest- 
ing the Indians in the arts of peace. It is true that 
when the novelty of the white man's ways had passed, 
many of the natives lost all interest. Yet upon the 
Spokanes and the Nez Perces, lasting influences were 
wrought. The ISTez Perces in particular, under the 
influence of their noble and intelligent chief, Hal-hal- 
tlos-sot, or Lawyer, almost decided the fate of Ameri- 
can institutions in the upper Columbia River region 
for years. 

One of the especially interesting events in con- 
nection with the Nez Perce mission was the acquisition 
by Mr. Spalding of the first printing-press used west 
of the Rocky Mountains. This was donated by the 
church of Rev. H. Bingham at Honolulu in 1839. 
The indefatigable Spalding, with the assistance of his 
wife, who had unusual powers as a linguist, began at 
once reducing the Nez Perce language to a written 
form and printing in it translations of hymns and 
portions of the Bible. Some of these first books of 
the Columbia River are still in existence. The vener- 
able printing-press is in the museum of the Oregon 
Pioneer Society at Portland. 

The most dramatic and influential event in con- 
nection with the missions of the Columbia, one of the 
most so in all American history, was Dr. Whitman's 




^ 






^ 



c 6 

.,-1 4J 

, o 

m X. 

a; 






The Coming of the Missionaries 153 

mid-winter ride in 1842-43 from Waiilatpu to St. 
Louis. Dr. Whitman, in common with Jason Lee, soon 
began to perceive that the Columbia Valley possessed 
resources and a location which would inevitably make 
it the seat of a civilised population. The corollary of 
this was that the mission must conform to the move- 
ments of the whites and in time cease to be simply an 
Indian mission. He perceived another thing. That 
was the purpose of the Hudson's Bay Company to 
hold Oregon under English possession and keep it a 
wilderness for the sake of the fur-trade. The corollary 
of that was that, if American families could be in- 
duced to locate in Oregon, they would in time topple 
the scale in favour of American ownership. 

The value of Oregon was then but dimly under- 
stood among the Americans. Webster, Benton, and 
others of the great statesmen are on record in the 
Congressional Globe with many disparaging remarks 
upon " that worthless Columbia River country." 

Whitman watched all signs with anxious eye. 
Negotiations between England and the United States 
indicated a probable surrender to the former. The 
American Board was considering the abandonment 
of the mission. Looking over the broad field of the 
future of the American nation with a statesman's 
vision, Dr. Whitman readily saw that the interests of 
his country and of Christian civilisation demanded the 
acquisition of Oregon. Those interests were in 
jeopardy. He made the great resolution to proceed 
at once to the " States " with the threefold aim: confer 
with the officers of the American Board on the reten- 
tion of the mission, confer with President Tyler, 
Secretary Webster, and such others of the officers of 



154 The Columbia River 

government as he could see at Washington, and finally 
help organise and lead back to Oregon an American 
immigration. His fellow-missionaries strongly opposed 
his purpose. They felt that it was abandoning the 
religious aims of the mission to take up political ques- 
tions. But he declared that he had not expatriated 
himself by becoming a missionary. Go he would. 
The undertaking seemed chimerical, even desperate. 
But Whitman was bold, atliletic, persistent, possessing 
all the qualities of a hero. 

With a single white companion, A. L. Love joy, 
and one or more Indian guides, he left Waiilatpu on 
October 3, 1842. His journey through snow, ice, wind, 
hunger, peril, and deprivation of every sort, has been 
ofttimes described. The extent of his influence in 
securing the adoption by our Government of the policy 
of retaining Oregon has become the theme of earnest, 
even acrimonious discussion. The simple fact remains 
that Oregon was "saved" to the American Union. The 
missionaries Lee and Whitman bore, each his part, 
and a great one, in the great final result. It is not 
too much to say that of the various lines of influence 
by which the valley of the Columbia became American 
territory, that of missions was one of the strongest. 

The Catholic missions of the Columbia Valley have 
found several chroniclers, of whom the most valuable 
are Rev. F. N. Blanchet and Bev. Pierre J. De Smet. 
The former in his book, TJie CatJwlic Church in Ore- 
gon, gives a clear and circumstantial account of the 
founding and carrying on of the work in the Willa- 
mette Valley. The latter in his Oregon Missions, 
and Western Missions and Missionaries, has given a 
singularly graphic and interesting report on religious 



The Coming of the Missionaries 155 

progress, and with it many charming descriptions of 
the scenery and other natural conditions of the country. 

Father Blanchet, in company with Rev. JModest 
Demers, w^nt from Montreal to Vancouver, a journey 
of over four thousand miles, in 1837-8. At the Little 
Dalles of the Columbia, near the present Northport, 
a lamentable disaster cost the lives of twelve of the 
company with whom they were travelling. Reaching 
Vancouver on November 24, 1838, they received from 
Dr. McLoughlin, who had himself been brought up a 
Catholic, a most cordial welcome, though apparently 
not more cordial than the good man had given Lee, 
the INIethodist, and Whitman, the Presbyterian. The 
fact that there were so many French Canadians in the 
country made the way of the Catholic Fathers easier 
than that of the other missionaries. For the French, 
with their gayety, sociability, and usual habit of inter- 
marriage with the Indians, were much more popular 
with them than were the more harsh and reserved 
British and Americans. In fact the Catholic Fathers 
found a building all ready for their use at the his- 
toric town of Champoeg on the Willamette, thirty 
miles above Portland. There in 1836, the French 
settlers had built a log church, the first church build- 
ing in Oregon. It is rather sad to relate that petty 
dissensions and jealousies marred the relations between 
the Catholics and the Methodists. But both alike were 
zealous and indefatigable in promoting the secular 
and religious interests of both red men and white men. 

While Fathers Blanchet and Demers and their 
associates were busily engaged in the Willamette 
Valley, Father de Smet had come in 1840 into the 
Flathead country, in what is now Northern Idaho 



156 The Columbia River 

and Western Montana. His first mission was St. 
Mary's on the Flathead River, founded bj^ the plant- 
ing of the cross on September 24, 1841. Other mis- 
sions were soon established on Coeur d'Alene River and 
Pend Oreille Lake. Branching out from them were 
missions in Colville, and ultimately in the Walla Walla, 
Yakima, Wenatchee, and Chelan valleys. 

De Smet greatly overestimated the number of In- 
dians, reckoning those in Oregon at one hundred and 
ten thousand. He numbered his converts by the thou- 
sands. So pressing seemed the needs that in 1843, he 
went to Europe for reinforcements. He was very suc- 
cessful in his quest, returning the following year in 
the ship L'Infatigable, from Antwerp, accompanied 
by four fathers, six sisters, and several lay brothers. 
He gives a thrilling account of his entrance of the 
Columbia River on July 31, 1844. He vividly por- 
trays the terrors of the bar with the mighty surges 
dashing across the entrance. The captain did not un- 
derstand the channel and became diverted from the 
true course, which was then by the north channel, and 
got into the south. The latter is now the main channel, 
but then was dangerous. De Smet piously regards 
their escape from wreck as due to the special inter- 
position of divine providence, and to the favour ex- 
tended to them because of its being the day sacred to 
St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of their order. De 
Smet's brilliant and poetical descriptions of the gran- 
deur of the river and its forests denote a keen appre- 
ciation of nature and a facile pen. 

Demers, De Smet, and Blanchet entered upon their 
work with such energy that by the time of De Smet's 



The Coming of the Missionaries 157 

report in 1844 there had been estabhshed four dioceses 
in the region tributary to the Columbia; viz., Oregon 
City, Walla AValla, Fort Hall, and Colville. Oregon 
City was the Metropolitan See and in charge of Rev. 
F. N. Blanchet. Walla Walla was under the direction 
of Rev. JMagloire Blanchet, who at that date had 
charge also of Forts Hall and Colville. Eleven chapels 
had been erected at different points; five in the Willa- 
mette Valley, one at Vancouver, one on the Cowlitz, 
one on Coeur d'Alene Lake, one on Pend Oreille Lake, 
one at Kettle Falls on the Columbia near Colville, and 
one near Calispell among the Flatheads. There were 
three schools; one being St. Mary's among the Flat- 
heads, while at St. Paul's on the Willamette, there 
were two, a college for boys and a girls' academy. 
Twelve clergymen were engaged at that time in the 
work, and the number was soon increased to twenty- 
six by another reinforcement from Europe. With the 
reinforcement were also seven female teachers. 

Each of these three chief groups of missions had! 
its special aims, methods, and results. The Catholic 
was more exclusively religious, while the Protestants 
passed over readily from their initial religious aims to 
the domain of political and educational interest. The 
net result was tremendous in the history of the country. 

Among the educational institutions growing di- 
rectly out of the labours of the missionaries we may 
mention Willamette University at Salem, the direct 
successor of the Methodist mission at Chemeketa; 
Whitman College at Walla Walla, founded by Cush- 
ing Eells as a memorial to Marcus Whitman; Pacific 
University at Forest Grove, Oregon, founded by a 



158 The Columbia River 

later set of Congregational Home Missionaries; and 
a Catholic School at St. Paul's, founded in 1843 by 
Father Blanchet, but maintained only a few years. 

They rest from their labours and their works do follow them. 



CHAPTER VII 

The Era of the Pioneers: their Ox-teams and 
their Flatboats 

Events and Men who led the Way to the Pioneer Age — Kelley, 
Wyeth, and Bonneville — Ewing Young — Farnham, Shortess, and 
the " Oregon Dragoons " — The Wilkes Expedition — The Star of 
Oregon, and the Cattle Enterprise — Dr. John McLoughlin and 
the Americans — Dr. Marcus Whitman and his Winter Ride, and 
the Immigration of 1843 — Retrospect of J. W. Nesmith — Features 
of the Journey across the Plains — Whitman's Services — Getting 
the Waggons across the Plains — Reaching the River and Build- 
ing Boats — Delights and then Distress of the Descent of the 
River — Battle with the River — Condition in which they Reached 
Vancouver, and their Reception by Dr. McLoughlin — Subsequent 
Immigrations — The Barlow Road — The Donation Land Law — 
Quotation from Jesse Applegate. 

THE pioneer era was ushered in by the coming to 
Oregon of fur-hunters, missionaries, and little 
bands of adventurers, who together composed 
the nucleus of that American community which formed 
the Provisional Government of 1843. There were 
certain individuals, too, whose agency in leading the 
way to the immigration movement was so unique as to 
deserve mention. 

One of these was Hall J. Kelley of Boston. He 
was a native of New Hampshire and a Harvard gradu- 
ate. As early as 1815, when seventeen years old, he 
conceived the idea of the colonisation of Americans in 
Oregon. He was a man of high scholarship, philan- 

159 



i6o The Columbia River 

thropic spirit, and patriotic purpose. He was a 
dreamer and idealist, planning to form a community 
on the Columbia, as one of the Utopias which minds 
of that stamp, from Plato down, have been fond of 
locating somewhere in the unexplored West. After 
making a great effort, with partial success, to enlist 
Congress in his schemes, he succeeded in organising 
a company of several hundred, and by 1828 shaped 
the definite plan of going to St. Louis and follow- 
ing the route of the fur companies across the plains 
to the River of Oregon. But opposition by those same 
fur companies, and adverse criticism by the press broke 
up his enterprise for that time. In 1832 he started 
with a small party for the land of his dreams by the 
route through Mexico and California. In California, 
he met with Ewing Young, an American of great 
natural abilities and some education. Young and 
Kelley, brainy and original men, the former from 
shrewd commercial instinct and the latter from philan- 
thropic dreams, formed a little company, and j)ro- 
ceeded overland from California to Oregon. This 
was in the autumn of 1834. When, after some dis- 
asters, the company of eleven reached the Columbia, 
Young took up a great tract of land in the Chehalem 
Valley, where he devoted himself to stock-raising. 
Kelley, having become an invalid, went in distress to 
Fort Vancouver, where Dr. McLoughlin treated him 
with kindness, though the exclusive " Britishers " 
would not admit him to " social equality." The other 
members of the company were scattered in various 
directions, but some of them remained till American 
occupancy became an accomplished fact. 

This company of 1834, — the same year that the 



The Era of the Pioneers i6i 

Methodist missionaries under Jason Lee arrived — 
may be considered the advance guard of American 
immigration. Kelley, upon his return to New Eng- 
land by way of the Sandwich Islands, disseminated 
much useful information about Oregon. To him, 
without doubt, is to be attributed much of the sub- 
sequent wave of interest which swept on toward Ameri- 
can immigration. As first a New England college 
man, educator, and social theoriser, and then a leader 
of the pioneer movement to Oregon, Hall J. Kelley 
is worthy of permanent remembrance. 

Ewing Young became distinguished for leading 
the party which in 1837 drove a band of seven hun- 
dred cattle from California to Oregon. This even 
marked an epoch in preparing for immigration and 
subsequent American possession. One of the pecu- 
liarly noteworthy facts in connection with Young's 
enterprise, is that Dr. JMcLoughlin, the Hudson's Bay 
Company's magnate, who had at first discountenanced 
Young on account of a charge of stealing brought 
against him from California, and who frowned upon 
the cattle enterprise for fear of American influence, 
became reconciled to both Young and the cattle, and 
subscribed liberally to the enterprise. 

Nearly contemporary with Kelley and Young were 
Bonneville and Wyeth. 

Bonneville was a well-educated French- American, 
a West Pointer, and holding the commission of cap- 
tain in the United States Army. His ardent and 
imaginative disposition became fired with the thought 
of a far western expedition, and in 1832 he organised 
a fur-traders' company of a hundred and ten men. 
Though not realising his dreams of a fortune in furs, 



i62 The Columbia River 

Bonneville made many interesting and valuable ob- 
servations upon the Salmon, Clearwater, Snake, and 
Columbia rivers. He became thoroughly imbued with 
the romance and scenic grandeur of the far West. 
Upon his return to New York, he had the good for- 
tune to meet Washington Irving at the home of John 
Jacob Astor. Irving had already felt the irresistible 
fascination which the River of Oregon has wrought 
upon all poetical natures, and the result of this meet- 
ing was one of Irving's most charming volumes, 
Bonneville's Adventures^ a volume which became an- 
other potent force in turning toward the Pacific slope 
the thoughts of the eager, restless people of the 
frontier. 

Still another in the group of men who led the way 
to immigration was Nathaniel Wyeth. He was a 
talented, well-educated, and energetic Bostonian. So 
distinguished a personage as James Russell Lowell 
has said of him: " He was a very remarkable person, 
whose conversation I valued highly. A born leader of 
men, he was fitly called Captain Nathaniel Wyeth as 
long as he lived." 

Wyeth conceived the idea of a great trading com- 
pany on the Columbia, whose operations M^ould neces- 
sarily create rivalry with the British. His design 
was to send companies across the continent to the 
Columbia head-waters and to maintain also ship con- 
nection by way of Cape Horn. He believed that a 
ship load of salmon from the Columbia River to the 
Atlantic sea-board would be a paying venture. On 
so large a scale did he lay out his enterprise that he 
expected soon to have a business of two hundred thou- 
sand dollars a year. But he looked beyond the fur 



The Era of the Pioneers 163 

and salmon business to American possession and settle- 
ment, at least south of the River to the California line. 
He therefore embraced in his view the building of 
enterprises which should lead up to and then profit by- 
American immigration. Wyeth spent five years in 
Oregon, having many interesting adventures, and as 
many business reverses. As was the case with Astor, 
the British fur-traders proved too powerful for the 
Yankee. Among other undertakings, he built a fort 
on Sauvie's Island at the mouth of the Willamette, 
which he called Fort William. He desired to make 
this the basis of his trade, and he expected the In- 
dians to go there to trade. But such was the in- 
fluence of the Hudson's Bay people and their employees 
with the Indians that Wyeth's fort had no trade. It 
was during those j^ears that a frightful pestilence 
swept the natives away like flies, and there was great 
fear among them that Wyeth's fort might harbour 
the scourge. The period of Wyeth's enterprise in 
Oregon extended from the spring of 1832 to the 
autumn of 1836. Though not a business success, it 
had a great bearing on the creation of an interest in 
Oregon, and on preparing for imimigration a few 
j^ears later. It opened the eyes of many Americans 
to the attractions of Oregon and to the tremendous 
power and profits of the Hudson's Bay Company. 

The next movement may be called a real immigration 
to Oregon. It consisted of a party of nineteen, com- 
monlj'^ known as the " Peoria party," since they went 
from Peoria, 111. Jason Lee, the missionary'- of Cheme- 
keta, delivered a lecture at that place in 1838, and so 
much interest in Oregon was aroused that in the year 
following, the Peoria party, the first regular party 



1 64 The Columbia River 

from the Mississippi Valley, set forth for the River 
of the West. Their leader, T, J. Farnham, christ- 
ened his followers the " Oregon Dragoons " and JNIrs. 
Farnham gave them a flag with the inscription, 
" Oregon or the Grave." Farnham declared his pur- 
pose to seize Oregon for the United States. 

The Peoria party had the good fortune to have two 
writers in the number, whose accounts possess rare 
interest. These writers were the leader Farnham, 
and Robert Shortess. The party went to pieces at 
Bent's Fort on the Arkansas, but its members reached 
Oregon somewhat in driblets during that year, and 
the one following. Shortess reached the Whitman 
Mission at Walla Walla in the fall of 1839, and there 
he remained until the following spring, when he went 
down the River to The Dalles. From The Dalles, he 
made his way over the Cascade JVIountains to the 
Willamette Valley, and there he lived many years. 
Farnham also finally reached Oregon, but his avowed 
mission was unfulfilled. Shortess says of him : " Instead 
of raising the American flag and turning the Hudson's 
Bay Company out-of-doors, he accepted the gift of a 
suit of clothes and a passage to the Sandwich Islands, 
and took a final leave of Oregon." But upon his re- 
turn to the " States," Farnham published a Pictorial 
History of Oregon and California^ a book of many 
interesting features, and one which played a worthy 
part in waking the people of the Mississippi Valley 
to the attractions of the Pacific Coast. 

Soon after the close of Wyeth's enterprise, there 
were two notable government expeditions to the 
Columbia River. One was commanded by Sir Ed- 
ward Belcher of the British Navy, and the other by 



The Era of the Pioneers 165 

Lieutenant Charles Wilkes of the American Xavy. 
The Wilkes expedition was one of the most interest- 
ing and important ever undertaken by the United 
States Government. The squadron consisted of two 
sloops-of-war, the Peacock and the Vincennes^ the 
store ship. Belief, the brig, Porpoise, and the schooners. 
Sea Gull and Flying Fish. This fine squadron took 
up its principal station on Puget Sound, from which 
extensive surveys were made, one across the mountains 
to Fort Okanogan; another of the Cowlitz Valley 
and the Columbia River as far as Wallula. 

One of the most important results of this elaborate 
Wilkes expedition was to establish in the minds of 
officers of the Government the essential unity of all 
parts of the Pacific Coast and the boundless oppor- 
tunities offered to American immigration. Wilkes 
and his intelligent officers readily grasped, and con- 
veyed through an elaborate report to the government, 
the idea that Puget Sound was an inherent and integral 
part of Oregon and that the Columbia Basin was es- 
sential to the proper development of American com- 
merce upon the Pacific. They may also have forecast 
the time when California with her girdles of gold and 
chaplets of freedom would spring, Athena-like, from 
the Zeus brain of American enterprise. The control 
of the River was the key to the control of the entire 
coast from San Diego to the Straits of Fuca; — and 
American ownership should have extended to Sitka. 

A memorable calamity occurred to the squadron 
upon its entrance to the River, and that was the loss of 
the Peacock on the Columbia River bar. The oft- 
depicted terrors of the River were realised at that time, 
and yet it was not the River's fault for the Peacock 



1 66 The Columbia River 

was out of the channel. The spit is known as " Pea- 
cock Spit " to this day. 

Among the many episodes connecting Wilkes with 
the early immigration was the building of the schooner 
Star of Oregon and her voyage to California for 
cattle. This was in 1842. It will be remembered 
that Ewing Young had made a successful trip from 
California with cattle. But as the population of the 
Columbia had increased, there was a great desire 
among the settlers to obtain a larger number of cattle 
to let loose upon the rich pasture lands of the Willa- 
mette Valley. A little group of Americans conceived 
the adventurous project of building a schooner of 
Oregon timber, sailing with her to California, exchang- 
ing her there for stock, and driving the band across 
the country home again. The schooner was built by 
Felix Hathaway, Joseph Gale, and Ralph Kilbourne. 
The oak and fir timber of which the vessel was built 
was cut on Sauvie's Island, at the mouth of the Willa- 
mette, and in due time she was launched and taken 
to Willamette Falls for fitting. A difficulty arose. 
Dr. McLoughlin refused to sell sails, cordage, and 
other materials. He had the only supply in Oregon. 
In despair the enterprising ship-builders appealed to 
Lieutenant Wilkes. He felt a keen interest in their 
laudable undertaking and made a visit to JNIcLoughlin 
to try to change his resolution. By assuring the 
Doctor that he would be responsible both for all the 
bills, as well as for the good conduct of the party, he 
induced him to allow the requisition for all materials 
necessary to complete the gallant craft. Gale was 
the only sailor in the party. Having satisfied Wilkes 
that he was qualified to command a ship, and having 



The Era of the Pioneers 167 

received from him a present of a flag, an ensign, a 
comiDass, kedge-anchor, hawser, log hne, and two log 
glasses, the captain flung the flag to the Oregon breeze 
and turned the prow of the Star of Oregon toward the 
River's mouth. She may be remembered as the first 
sea-going vessel built of Oregon timber. Crossing the 
Bar in a storm, she sped southward in a spanking 
breeze, all hands seasick except Gale. He held the 
wheel thirty-six hours continuously, and in five days 
" dashed through the portals of the Golden Gate like 
an arrow, September 17, 1842." 

As it was too late to get the cattle back to Oregon 
that fall, the party sold their schooner for three hun- 
dred and fifty cows, wintered in California, and the 
next spring drove to the Columbia twelve hundred and 
fifty head of cattle, six hundred head of mules and 
horses, and three thousand sheep. This was an achieve- 
ment which made the way for immigration clearer 
than ever before, and in a most effective manner 
united the American settlers with the American gov- 
ernment. Some of the Hudson's Bay Company people 
could begin to see the handwriting on the wall. Dr. 
JNIcLoughlin saw most quickly and most clearly, and 
as elsewhere narrated, began to transfer his interests 
to the American side. This fine old man was big- 
brained, big-bodied, and big-souled, a natural Ameri- 
can, though compelled to work for the British fur 
monopolists for the time. He admired the inde- 
pendent spirit of the incoming Yankee immigrants, 
even when the joke was on him. He afterwards told 
with much gusto of an American named Woods cross- 
ing the Columbia to Vancouver to try to get goods. 
He found his credit shaky, and somewhat piqued, he 



i68 The Columbia River 

exclaimed : " Well, never mind, I have an uncle back 
East rich enough to buy out the whole of your old 
Hudson's Bay Company! " " Well, well, Mr. Woods," 
demanded the autocrat, " who may this very rich 
uncle of yours be?" "Uncle Sam," was the un- 
abashed and characteristic American reply. "White 
Eagle" also appreciated, though he was obliged to 
manifest a dignified disapproval, when two young men 
from New York, having reached the fort on the River, 
were asked about their passports. Laying their hands 
on their rifles they replied, "These are an American's 
passports." 

These small miscellaneous immigrations were in 
continuance from about 1830 to 1842. In the latter 
year a hundred came. In 1843, as elsewhere related, 
the Provisional Government was instituted. At the 
very same time, the immigration of 1843 was on its 
way to the River. 

This immigration of 1843 was in many respects the 
most remarkable of all. It was the first large one, 
and it was a type of all. It will be remembered that 
Dr. Marcus Whitman had made his great winter ride 
in 1842-43 across the Rockies to St. Louis, with a 
double aim. First he wished to see the oflScers of the 
American Board of Missions, and then to enlist the 
American government and people in the policy of 
holding Oregon against the manifest aims of the 
British. There was already a tremendous interest 
felt in Oregon among the people of JNIissouri, Illinois, 
and the other great prairie States. Whitman's oppor- 
tune arrival and his announced purpose to guide an 
immigration to the Columbia became widely known, 
and brought to a focus many vaguely-considered plans. 



The Era of the Pioneers 169 

J. W. Nesmith, subsequently one of the most 
prominent pioneers and a member of each House of 
Congress from Oregon, has given a humorous account 
of the manner of starting this immigration of 1843, 
of which he was a member, which is so characteristic 
that we quote it here. 

Mr. Burnett, or as he was more familiarly styled, " Pete," 
was called upon for a speech. Mounting a log the glib- 
tongued orator delivered a glowing florid address. He com- 
menced by showing his audience that the then western tier 
of states and territories were crowded with a redundant popu- 
lation, who had not sufficient elbow room for the expansion 
of their enterprise and genius, and it was a duty they owed 
to themselves and posterity to strike out in search of a more 
expanded field and a more genial climate, where the soil 
yielded the richest return for the slightest amount of cultiva- 
tion, — where the trees were loaded with perennial fruit, — and 
where a good substitute for bread, called La Camash, grew in 
the ground; where salmon and other fish crowded the streams; 
and where the principal labour of the settlers would be con- 
fined to keeping their gardens free from the inroads of buffalo, 
elk, deer, and wild turkeys. He appealed to our patriotism 
by picturing forth the glorious empire we should establish 
upon the shores of the Pacific, — how with our trusty rifles we 
should drive out the British usurpers who claimed the soil, 
and defend the country from the avarice and pretensions of 
the British Lion, — and how posterity would honour us for 
placing the fairest portion of the land under the Stars and 
Stripes. . . . Other speeches were made full of glowing de- 
scriptions of the fair land of promise, the far-away Oregon, 
which no one in the assemblage had ever seen, and about which 
not more than half a dozen had ever read any account. After 
the election of Mr. Burnett as captain, and other necessary 
officers, the meeting, as motley and primitive a one as ever as- 
sembled, adjourned with " three cheers " for Captain Burnett 
and Oregon. 



170 The Columbia River 

Peter Burnett to whom Nesmith here refers, was 
the same who became the first governor of Cahfornia. 

By the walnut hearth-fires in many a home of the 
prairie States and at the corn-huskings and quilting 
bees the talk of Oregon and the forests of the Colum- 
bia, and the rich pasture lands of the Willamette, and 
the salmon and game, and genial climate and majestic 
mountains, went the rounds. Interest grew into en- 
thusiasm, enthusiasm waxed hot, and in the early 
spring the great immigration of 1843 set forth from 
Westport, JNIissouri, for the Columbia waters. Though 
the immigration of 1843 was the earliest of any size 
and the first with any number of women and chil- 
dren, it had perhaps the least trouble and misfortune 
and the most romance and gayety and enthusiasm of 
any. The experience of crossing the plains was one 
which nothing else could duplicate; — the hasty rising 
in the chill damp of the morning, the preparing the 
cattle and horses for the long, hard drive, the rounds of 
the waggons to strengthen bolts and tires and tongues, 
the loading of the rifles for possible hostile Indians or 
buffalo, the setting forth of the scouts on horseback, 
the long train strung across the dusty plain, the 
occasional bands of wild Indians emerging like a whirl- 
wind from the broad expanse, and then the approach- 
ing cool of night with its hurried rest on the rough 
prairie sod. Sometimes there were nights of storm 
and stampede and darkness. Sometimes savage beasts 
and savage men startled the train, or one of the stu- 
pendous herds of buffalo went thundering across the 
prairie. Then came the first glimpse of snowy heights, 
then of deep canons, and then the summit was attained, 
and far westward stretched the maze of plains and 



The Era of the Pioneers 171 

mountains through which the Snake River, the great- 
est of the tributaries of the Columbia, took its swift 
way. 

During most of the journey, Dr. Marcus Whitman 
was guide, j^hj^sician, and friend. While severe con- 
troversy has arisen as to the extent of his services in 
organising the immigration, the testimony is unvary- 
ing as to the value of his presence with the train. 
Last to bed at night and first up in the morning, at- 
tending both people, cattle, and horses in their sicknesses 
and accidents, ahead of the train on horseback to find 
the passes of the hills and the fords of the rivers, the 
watcher by night and the pilot by day, the missionary 
doctor was the veritable " Mr. Greatheart " of the 
immigration. 

Great was the astonishment of Captain Grant, 
commandant of the Hudson's Bay Fort Hall on 
Snake River, near the present Pocatello, when the long 
train filed past the enclosure. Grant had known 
Whitman before and was aware of his stubborn de- 
termination and patriotic purpose. But Grant at- 
tempted just the same to dissuade the immigrants of 
1843 from going farther with their waggons, declaring 
the Blue Mountains to be impassable. The doughty 
doctor simply laughed quietly and told the immigrants 
to push on, and he would see them through. But just 
as they were entering the rough defiles of the Blue 
^Mountains, a band of Indians from Waiilatpu, headed 
by Sticcus, came to meet the train, searching for 
Whitman, telling him that his medical services were 
in great demand at Lapwal. The much-needed guide 
turned over the pilotage of the train to Sticcus, and 
he himself hastened on to minister to the sick at Lap- 



172 The Columbia River 

wai. As he passed through Waiilatpu he learned that 
the threatening conduct of the Indians had led Mrs. 
Whitman to go to Vancouver, and that during his 
absence the Indians had burned his mill and com- 
mitted other depredations. But it was his lot to 
labour and suffer. He had become accustomed to it. 

The event proved that Sticcus was a thoroughly ca- 
pable guide. For, though not speaking a word of Eng- 
lish, he made his directions so well understood by 
pantomime that, as Mr. Nesmith has said, he led them 
safely over the roughest mountain road that they ever 
saw. And so in due time the train emerged from the 
screen of timber on the Blue Mountains. Stretched 
wide before them, lay the plains of Umatilla and 
Walla Walla, while in the far distance the River of 
the West poured through the arid waste. Yet farther 
the snow summits of the Cascades ridged the western 
sky. After a brief pause at Waiilatpu, the train 
reached the banks of the River. The immediate vicin- 
ity of the section of the River first reached is very 
dry in autumn. Aside from the River itself, the im- 
mediate scene is desolate and forbidding. But prob- 
ably those immigrants of '43 gazed upon the blue 
flood, a mile wide and hastening to the western ocean, 
with feelings almost akin to those which swelled the 
hearts of the Pilgrims landing from the Mayflo'wer. 
This was another epic of state-making, and one genera- 
tion after another of the Americans who have wrought 
such achievement may well turn back to join hands 
with those before. 

Doubtless the immigrants, as they stood by the 
River in the pleasant haze of the October afternoon, 
felt as though their journey was substantially at an 



The Era of the Pioneers 173 

end. Being now at Fort Walla Walla on the river 
of that name, they paused to make ready for the last 
stage of the journey, little realising what perils and 
sufferings it would entail. Dr. Whitman and Archi- 
bald JMcKinley, the chief factor at the fort, advised 
them to leave their cattle and waggons to winter on 
the AValla Walla, while they pursued their way down 
the stream on flatboats. Part of the company ac- 
cepted the advice, but a number determined to keep 
all their belongings together and to take their road 
along the bank of the River to The Dalles, and there 
make their flatboats. 

To those who remained on the Walla Walla now 
fell the difficult task of constructing flatboats. Huge, 
uncouth, structures they were, made of timber gathered 
on the river bank. But when loaded and pushed out 
into the swift current, steered with immense sweeps in 
the stern, these flatboats afforded to the footsore and 
exhausted immigrants a delightful change. Out of 
the dust, off the rocks, away from the sage-brush, 
with more of laugh and song than they had had for 
many a day, they swept gaily on. For a hundred 
miles or more the elements were propitious. With 
the bright sunshine, the clear, cool water, the majestic 
snow-peaks in the distance, the easily gliding boats, — ■ 
this seemed the pleasantest part of the entire journey. 
But after The Dalles had been reached and the two 
divisions of the company w^ere again united and on 
their way down the River to the Cascades, disaster 
began to haunt them. At the Cascades, a boat with 
several members of the Applegate family, one of the 
most prominent in the immigration as well as after- 
wards, was overturned in the rapids, and three of the 



174 The Columbia River 

party drowned in the boihng surge. Two were saved 
in a way that seems almost miraculous. One of these 
was a young boy, the other a young man. The boy 
was very active and an excellent swimmer. After the 
overturning of the boat he was carried two miles in 
the current, part of the time being entirely sucked 
under by the whirling under-current. After being 
tossed with violence betwixt rock and wave till it 
seemed that he must expire, he was suddenly spewed 
forth upon a ledge of slippery rock, to which he clung 
desperately till he had recovered breath. Then he 
drew himself up on a narrow shelf, and at the same 
instant saw the young man swept by. Reaching forth, 
the brave boy managed to bring the struggling man 
to the same shelter with himself. But when they had 
regained sufficient strength to examine their surround- 
ings, they discovered that they were on a rocky niche 
from which they could find no ascent of the ragged 
precipitous cliff. They were in a trap. Looking 
across the River, they could see that the bank was 
smooth and that on that side lay the trail. Young 
Applegate saw that a reef extended a considerable 
part of the way across the River, and desperate as 
the attempt seemed, he resolved to pick his way along 
the reef to a point whence he might swim to the other 
shore. It was his only chance for life. Fearful as 
were the odds, the daring lad accomplished his aim. 
He emerged on the further end of the reef. Looking 
around, he discovered that his comrade had not pos- 
sessed the nerve to follow. And then, — most wonder- 
ful of all, — back he went to assist his more timid 
fellow. In this, too, he succeeded, and after a return 
in which they should have been drowned a dozen times, 



The Era of the Pioneers 175 

they both reached the farther end of the reef. There 
casting themselves again into the inhospitable flood, 
they buffeted their way to shore. Battered, bruised, 
exhausted, they yet recovered and lived to a good old 
age to tell the tale of their fight with the Columbia 
River. 

From the Cascades to Vancouver, the company 
suffered more than in all the rest of their journey. 
The fall rams were at hand, and it poured with an 
unremitting energy such as no one can realise who 
has not seen a rain storm on the lower River. Food 
had become almost exhausted. Clothing was in rags. 
Tired, hungry, wet, cold, disheartened, the immigrants 
who had so jauntily descended the River to this " Strait 
of Horrors," presented a most woful appearance. 
It actually seemed that many must perish. But in 
the crisis, help came. One of the party managed to 
procure a canoe and hastened down the River to Fort 
Vancouver. As soon as Dr. McLoughlin learned that 
nearly nine hundred men, women, and children were 
beleaguered in the mist and chill, he equipped boats 
with flour, meat, and tea, and in his choleric excite- 

I ment, waving his huge cane, bade the boatman hurr}^ 
to the rescue. It was not business for the good 

I Doctor to thus aid and abet American immigrants, 
and the directors of the Hudson's Bay Company and 

I the cold-blooded Sir George Simpson, Governor-in- 
chief, disapproved. But it was humanity, and that 

^ ever predominated in the mind of the good Doctor. 

I The next night he caused vast bonfires to be alight 
along the bank, and gathered all the eatables and 

j blankets that the place afforded. When the boat loads 
of the battered, but rescued Americans drew near, the 



T76 The Columbia River 

Doctor was on the bank to meet them, to hand out the 
women and children, to administer the balm of cheery- 
words and warmth and food. Few were the travellers 
on the River, none were the immigrants of '43, who 
would not rise up and call him blessed. 

After this happy pause at Vancouver, the immigra- 
tion passed on to the Willamette Falls, then the 
centre of operations in Oregon, and there they were 
soon joined by the chosen men who had driven their 
thirteen hundred head of cattle by the trail over the 
Cascade Mountains, a task toilsome and even distress- 
ing, but one that was accomplished. After an inactive 
winter in the mild, muggy, misty Oregon climate, the 
immigrants of '43 spread abroad in the opening 
spring to secure land, each his square mile, as the 
Provisional Government provided, and as the Ameri- 
can government was contemplating. 

Such was the coming of the immigrants to the 
River. Subsequent immigrations bore a general re- 
semblance to that of 1843. Each had its special 
feature. That of 1845 was conspicuous for its size. 
It was three thousand strong. It was also illustrious 
for the laying out of the road across the Cascade 
Mountains near the southern flank of Mt. Hood. 
This noble and difficult undertaking was carried 
through by S. K. Barlow and William Rector. It 
was a terrific task, and was not completed the first 
year. Canons, precipitous rocks, morasses, sand-hills, 
tangled forests, fallen trees, criss-crossed and inter- 
laced with briars and vines and shrubbery of tropical 
luxuriance, such as no one can appreciate who has not 
seen an Oregon jungle, — these were the obstructions 
to the Barlow Road. But they were vanquished and 




Oregon City in 1845. 
From an Old Print. 



The Era of the Pioneers 177 

in 1846 and thence onward the immigrants made this 
the regular route to the Willamette Valley. So steep 
was Laurel Hill on the western slope that waggons had 
to be let down by ropes from level to level. The 
marks of the ropes or chains are still seen on the trees 
of Laurel Hill. The immigration of 1852 was sadly 
conspicuous for the devastations of cholera. Many a 
family was broken in sunder and some even were en- 
tirely eliminated by the dreadful plague. The im- 
migrations of 1854 and 1855 were notable for the 
Indian outbreaks, and especially for the atrocious 
butchery of the Ward faihily near Boise in the earlier 
year, the most pitiless Indian outrage in Oregon 
history. 

From 1850 onward for some years the Donation 
Land Law of Congress was a great lure to immigrants, 
for by it a man and wife could obtain a section of 
land. A single man could take up half a section. 
That situation encouraged early marriages. Girls 
were in great demand. It was not uncommon to see 
fourteen-year-old brides. Some narrators relate hav- 
ing found married women in the woods of the Colum- 
bia who were playing with their dolls! But though 
the immigrations varied in special features, they were 
all alike in their mingling of mirth and melancholy, 
of toil and rest, of suffering and enjoyment, of hero- 
ism, and self-sacrifice. They embodied an epoch of 
American history that can never come again. To 
have been an immigrant from the JVIissouri to the 
Columbia was an experience to which nothing else on 
earth is comparable. It confers a title of American 
nobility by the side of which the coronets of some 
European dukes are tawdry and contemptible. Per- 



178 The Columbia River 

haps no one ever better phrased the spirit of Oregon 
immigration than Jesse Applegate of the train of '43, 
one of the foremost of Oregon's builders, long known 
as the " Sage of Yoncalla." So fitting do we deem 
his language that we quote here an extract from one 
of his addresses. 

The Western pioneer had probably crossed the Blue Ridge 
or the Cumberland Mountains when a boy and was now in 
his prime. Rugged, hardy, and powerful of frame, he was full 
to overflowing with the love of adventure, and animated by 
a brave soul that scorned the very idea of fear. All had heard 
of the perpetually green hills and plains of Western Oregon, 
and how the warm breath of the vast Pacific tempered the 
air to the genial degree and drove winter back to the North. 
Many of them contrasted in imagination the open stretch of a 
mile square of rich, green, and grassy land, where the straw- 
berry plant bloomed through every winter month, with their 
circumscribed clearings in the Missouri bottoms. Of long 
winter evenings neighbours visited each other, and before the 
big shell-bark hickory fire, the seasoned walnut fire, the dry 
black-jack fire, or the roaring dead elm fire, they talked these 
things over ; and as a natural consequence, under these favour- 
able circumstances, the spirit of emigration warmed up; and 
the " Oregon fever " became as a household expression. Thus 
originated the vast cavalcade, or emigrant train, stretching 
its serpentine length for miles, enveloped in vast pillars of 
dust, patiently wending its toilsome way across the American 
continent. 

How familiar these scenes and experiences with the old 
pioneers! The vast plains, the uncountable herds of buffalo; 
the swift-footed antelope; the bands of mounted, painted war- 
riors; the rugged snow-capped mountain ranges; the deep, 
swift, and dangerous rivers ; the lonesome howl of the wild 
wolf; the midnight yell of the assaulting savage; the awful 
panic and stampede ; the solemn and silent funeral at the dead 
hour of night, and the lonely and hidden grave of departed 
friends, — what memories are associated with the Plains across ! 




An Oregon Pioneer in his Cabin. 
Photo, by E. H. Moorehouse. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Conflict of Nations for Possession of the River 

The Six Nations at First Engaged in the Conflict — The Three Left 
in it — Claims by Sea of Spain, England, and the United States 
— Claims by Land — Rivalries of the Great Fur Companies — 
Capture of Astoria by the English — Its Restoration to the United 
States — Appearance of Fort George in 1818 — Joint Occupation 
Treaty of 1818— Florida Treaty of 1819— Treaty with Russia in 
1825 — Forces on the Side of England and those on the side of 
the United States — American Triumph Inevitable — Policy of the 
Hudson's Bay Company in Contrast with that of the American 
Immigration — Indifference of the American Government — Utter- 
ances of Some American Statesmen — Doings of the American 
People — Gathering of the Little American Colony in the Willa- 
mette Valley — Need of Government — First Meeting at Champoeg 
— Advice of Commodore Wilkes that they Delay — The " Wolf 
Meetings " — Second Meeting at Champoeg, and Establishment 
of the Provisional Government — Its Chief Provisions — Thornton's 
Account of the " Hall " at Champoeg — Peter H. Burnett — Dr. 
McLoughlin's Position — Triumphs of the American Immigrant 
over the Great Fur Company — McLoughlin and Whitman — Move- 
ments of Diplomacy between England and the United States 
— Webster, Linn, Benton, and Calhoun — Inconsistent Positions 
of the Democratic Party — Polk and the Platform of 54 Degrees 
40 Minutes, or Fight — Near Approach of War — Compromise on 
the Line of 49 Degrees — Momentous Nature of the Issue — Tri- 
umph of American Home-builders. 

EARLIER chapters of this volume have already 
developed some of the essential elements in the 
complicated strife of the maritime nations of the 
world for possession of the land of the Oregon. This 
brief chapter will endeavour to recapitulate and group 
those steps, and to trace the course of events by which 
the line finally was drawn on the parallel of 49 degrees. 

179 



i8o The Columbia River 

As we have seen, the many-named river, and the 
fact that it was the key to a vast region and that 
the shores of the ocean contiguous to it seemed to 
abound in the finest of furs, was a hire to Portuguese, 
Frenchman, Russian, Spaniard, EngHshman, and 
American. The first three became early eliminated 
from the conflict, and the last three fought the tri- 
angular battle to its ending with the final result that 
Uncle Sam inserted his broad shoulders between 
Mexico and the 49th parallel, and thus controls the 
choicest land of the sunset slope of the continent. 

Spain, England, and the United States each had 
a valid claim to Oregon. Spain, by the partial dis- 
covery of the River by Heceta in 1775, by the voyages 
of Bodega and Arteaga in the same year and again in 
1779, and by the voyage of Valdez and Galiano 
around Vancouver Island in 1792, together with 
many other voyages of a less definite nature by illus- 
trious navigators, as Malaspina, Bustamente, Elisa, 
and others, had a strong position. Yet she had failed 
to clinch her discoveries or to take effective possession. 

Great Britain could point to the elaborate ex- 
aminations of Cook and Vancouver. The latter had 
made a minute investigation of the noble group of 
waters whose outlet preserves the name of the old 
Greek pilot of Cephalonia, Juan de Fuca; and his 
Lieutenant Broughton had entered the Columbia 
River and proceeded over a hundred miles up the 
stream. The nomenclature given to both the River 
and the Sound regions by Vancouver had been the 
first in any sense complete. So England, too, had a 
strong claim. 

And what were the claims of the United States? 



Conflict for Possession of the River 



i»i 



First and foremost was the discovery by Robert Gray 
of the River and his actual twenty-five-mile ascension 
of it in May, 1792. He had gone much farther than 
Heceta, who had only looked in, but he had not gone 
so far as Rroughton. The latter indeed, claimed, and 
his government followed him in the claim, that Gray 
had not really been in the River at all, but was only 
in an estuary of the sea into which the River flowed. 
But that, to any one who has seen the River, is too 
much of a forced construction to stand serious ex- 
amination. Moreover, Gray antedated Broughton 
by some months. 

Turning from sea claims to land claims, England 
could point to Alexander Mackenzie as having crossed 
the continent in 1792, and as having reached the veri- 
table ocean at Cascade Inlet. But it again was a 
very strained construction to extend that claim so far 
as to include the lower Columbia Valley. The United 
States could justly advance as a sufficient offset, the 
expedition of Lewis and Clark in 1804. In 1811 
David Thompson had traversed the entire length of 
the Columbia for the British flag, only to find the 
Astor Company already established under the Stars and 
Stripes at the mouth of the River. From these essential 
facts out of many, we can easily draw the conclusion 
that no one of these three contestants could justly be 
too arrogant and exclusive. Some degree of modesty 
was befitting each. 

We have already seen the rivalries of the great 
fur companies, the Hudson's Bay and the North- 
western of the British, and the Pacific of the Ameri- 
cans, and the effect of the War of 1812 on their 
fortunes. As a result of that war the Pacific Fur 



1 82 The Columbia River 

Company sold out to the North-westers, and a few 
years later the North-westers united with the Hud- 
son's Bay Company under the name of the latter. 
To all appearance the Yankee was worsted, and the 
Briton in possession of the River. 

But the Treaty of Ghent in 1815, closing the War 
of 1812, provided that all territory taken by either 
party should be restored. The boundary line west of 
the Lake of the Woods was left undrawn. John 
Jacob Astor now ajaplied to the Government to re- 
store his captured property on the Columbia, stating 
that if again in possession, he would resume his 
former operations. The United States Government 
accordingly notified Great Britain of its intention to 
re-occupy the fort at the Columbia's mouth. For 
two years the communication lay unanswered. In 
September, 1817, the sloop-of-war, Ontario^ Captain 
J. Biddle, was despatched to the Columbia with ^Ir. 
J. B. Prevost, as special agent, under instructions to 
assert the claim of the United States to the territory 
of the River. This decisive move compelled Great 
Britain to come out from under cover. A long and 
tedious diplomatic warfare ensued. IMeanwhile the 
Ontario w^as pursuing her long journey around Cape 
Horn. In 1818, an agreement was reached to the 
effect that Astoria should be formally restored to the 
United States, but that the North-western Fur Com- 
pany should be allowed to remain in actual possession. 
Captain Biddle of the Ontario had left ^Ir. Prevost 
in Chile and had proceeded to the Columbia to take 
possession. Captain Sheriff, commandant of the 
British ships in the Pacific, being in Valparaiso, in 
H. M. S. Blossom, learning of Mr. Prevost's pre- 



Conflict for Possession of the River 183 

sence there, conceived the happy thought that it would 
be an international courtesy to invite ]Mr. Prevost to 
accompany him to Astoria. Accordingly on October 
1, 1818, the Blossom pushed her bow across the Bar, 
and on the 6th the formal ceremony of transfer from 
the Union Jack to the Stars and Stripes took place. 
Captain F. Hickey of the Blossom represented Great 
Britain, Mr. J. Keith acted for the North-west Fur 
Company, while Mr. Prevost stood for the United 
States. It seems to have been a very good-natured 
affair throughout. Placards were posted at the capes 
on both sides of the River declaring the change of 
sovereignty. Fort George was quite a powerful 
structure at that time, consisting of a strong stock- 
ade of fir logs twelve feet high, enclosing a parallelo- 
gram one hundred and fifty by two hundred and fifty 
feet, having within it dwellings, shops, store houses, 
and magazines. On the walls were two eighteen- 
pound cannon, six six-pounders, four four-pound 
carronades, two six-pound cohorns, and seven swivels. 
The day of transfer must have been a very picturesque 
day among the many such in Astoria's history. We 
can imagine the soft October haze floating over Cape 
Hancock, and the long, lazy swell of six thousand 
miles of sea, thundering across Point Adams. 

One interesting feature of Mr. Prevost's presence 
at Astoria was his observation of the bar at the en- 
trance of the River. This had generally been repre- 
sented to the world as something frightful. It is 
often so represented at the present time. Mr. Pre- 
vost, in a letter to Secretary of State John Quincy 
Adams, says that there is a spacious bay, by no 
means so difficult of ingress as has been represented. 



184 The Columbia River 

He states that there is a bar across the mouth of the 
River, at either extremity of which there are some- 
times appaUing breakers; but that there is a channel 
of nearly a league in width with a depth of twenty-one 
feet at the lowest tides. He thinks, therefore, that 
with proper buoys the access to vessels of almost any 
tonnage may be rendered secure. This statement in 
regard to the Bar is of much interest as furnishing 
a basis for comparison with the present conditions. 
The depth at low tide now is about twenty-six feet, 
the increase probably being due to the jetty. 

The logic of the restoration of Astoria to the United 
States, while at the same time the British Fur Com- 
pany was left in practical possession, was realised in 
the Joint Occupation Treaty of 1818. By this singu- 
lar arrangement it was agreed that any country on 
the north-west coast of America that may be claimed 
by either power shall be open for ten years to the 
vessels, citizens, and subjects of the two powers. 

In 1819 another very important step was taken; 
viz.: the Florida Treaty with Spain. By this, Spain 
retired to the line of 42 degrees, ceding to the Ameri- 
can Republic all her rights above that line. With 
her own claims joined to those of Spain, the Republic 
would seem to be able to snap her fingers at Eng- 
land. But, with characteristic tenacity, the latter 
power made ready to insist all the more strenuously 
upon her claims. In 1825 England and the United 
States agreed with Russia upon the line of 54 degrees 
40 minutes, as the southern line of Russian claims. 
With Spain and Russia out of it, Oregon was left 
for England and the United States to fight over. 
The Joint Occupation Treaty was to last ten years. 



Conflict for Possession of the River 185 

with the privilege of renewal. Meanwhile what were 
the factors in the struggle for possession? There 
was on the side of England the Briarean monopoly 
of the Hudson's Bay Company, supported by a dis- 
ciplined and intelligent government. But the Eng- 
lish people were not in it. On the American side the 
Government was strangely indifferent. There were 
several ambitious attempts to control the situation by 
American trading and fur companies. But the es- 
sential forces were the American immigrant, the 
American missionary, the Declaration of Independence, 
and the ox-team. Those were the champions of 
America. They were the Davids against the Goliaths 
of British monopoly. At first thought it seemed that 
Goliath would have a " walk-over." The case seemed 
hopeless for the Americans. 

But to the deeper observer, American triumph was 
inevitable. It was the Age of Democracy. The con- 
ception both of popular government and of individual 
ownership of land, with which went the corollary of 
" equal opportunities for all men and special privileges 
for none," was graven deep upon American character. 
With these things there went, of necessity, the dis- 
approval of slavery and the support of free labour. 
Still further there went, by the same logic, the doc- 
trine of unity and continental expansion. These vari- 
ous influences have constituted the broad foundation 
on which were reared the towers and battlements of 
American nationality. 

In previous chapters we have outlined the operations 
of the Hudson's Bay Company, the coming of the 
missionaries, and the immigrations of Americans. The 
policy of the Hudson's Bay Company was to keep the 



i86 The Columbia River 

country a wilderness, to maintain amicable relations 
with the Indians, and to depend mainly on the fur- 
trade for the great profits of their enterprise. The 
policy of the American immigrants w^as to build homes, 
cities, roads, steamboats, mills, develop the country, 
crowd out the natives, and depend on mining, farming, 
stock-raising, lumbering, for their profits; not profits 
of a monopoly located in a distant money centre, but 
profits of the individual worker on his own land. The 
difference was world-wide. It represented two different 
conceptions of government and of life itself. 

But though the American people had the manifest 
destiny of expanding to the Pacific, the Government 
was strangely supine. We say " strangely," but it 
was not so strange after all. Congress was dominated 
by the South in the interest of slavery, and by the 
East in the interest of the tariff. Calhoun usually 
led the South, and he weighed everything in the 
scales of slavery. Webster governed Eastern sen- 
timent largely, and he spoke for New England 
manufacturers. It is true that Clay was at all times 
a power in the councils of the nation, and Clay's con- 
stant word was nationalisation and expansion. But 
even Clay was so committed to the tariff that he did 
not always appreciate the possibilities of the " West- 
most West." The Presidents of the period were 
from the South or the Atlantic seaboard and not 
usually inclined to regard the far West with special 
interest. 

The American people were away ahead of the 
American Government in the struggle for possession 
of Oregon. A few of the utterances of leading 
statesmen of that period as significant of their con- 



Conflict for Possession of the River 187 

ception of Oregon, may be given here. Benton, who 
became later the greatest champion of Oregon, was 
so imperfectly informed in 1825 that he spoke thus: 
" The ridge of the Rocky JNIountains may be named 
as a convenient, natural, and everlasting boundary. 
Along this ridge the western limit of the Republic 
should be drawn, and the statue of the fabled god Ter- 
minus should be erected on its highest peak, never to 
be thrown down." But Benton improved, for later 
referring to the Columbia, he said, " That way lies the 
Orient." Webster said of Oregon: "What do we 
want of this vast, worthless area, this region of savages 
and wild beasts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds of 
dust, of cactus and prairie dogs. To what use could 
w^e ever hope to put these great deserts or these great 
mountain ranges, impenetrable and covered to their 
base with eternal snow? What can we ever hope to 
do with the western coast, a coast of three thousand 
miles, rock-bound, cheerless, and uninviting, and not a 
harbour on it? What use have we of such a country? 
INIr. President, I will never vote one cent from the 
public treasury to place the Pacific Coast one inch 
nearer Boston than it is now." And that was " God- 
like Dan!" Dayton expressed himself thus: "God 
forbid that the time should ever come when a State on 
the shores of the Pacific, with interests and tendencies 
of trade all looking toward the Asiatic nations of the 
East, shall add its jarring claims to our distracted 
and already overburdened confederacy." The Na- 
tional Intelligencer doubtless expressed a common 
sentiment in the following : " Of all the countries 
upon the face of the earth, Oregon is one of the 
least favoured by nature. It is almost as barren as 



1 88 The Columbia River 

Sahara and quite as unhealthy as the campagna of 
Italy." 

Such an estimate by American statesmen was all 
right to the Hudson's Bay Company. They wished 
such an estimate and had taken pains to foster it. 
But while the gullible American statesmen were thus 
accepting just the version which their rivals were dis- 
seminating, the hard-handed and hard-headed, though 
not hard-hearted frontiersmen of Missouri and Illi- 
nois and Iowa were packing their ox-teams and start- 
ing across the desert for that Sahara on the Columbia 
River. Also one Marcus Whitman, a missionary 
physician of the Walla Walla, was floundering in the 
snows of the Sierra Madre and crossing the Arkansas 
through broken ice, in order to tell the benighted 
statesmen what the land of the Oregon really was 
like. The American people were busy, and the states- 
men looked askance. And so, a few here and a few 
there, by trail or ship, adventurers, missionaries, sailors, 
trappers, there was formed a gathering in the Willa- 
mette of the advance guard of American home-builders. 
They began to call out of the wilderness to Uncle Sam. 

As a result of the coming of the missionaries and of 
the small immigrations of the thirties and early forties, 
together with the settlement in the Willamette Valley 
of various French-Canadian employees of the Hud- 
son's Bay Company, there was enough of a population 
to demand some sort of organised society. 

W. H. Gray made a summary of population in 
1840 to consist of two hundred persons, of whom a 
hundred and thirty-seven were American and sixty- 
three Canadian. Up to 1839 the only law was the 
rules of the Hudson's Bay Company. In that year 



Conflict for Possession of the River 189 

the Methodist missionaries suggested that two per- 
sons be named as magistrates to administer justice 
according to the ordinary rules of American law. 
This was the first move looking to American political 
organisation. In 1839 and 1840 memorials were 
presented to the Senate by Senator Linn of Missouri 
at the request of American settlers praying for the 
attention of Congress to their needs. But, not con- 
tent wdth lifting their voices to the home land, they 
proceeded to organise for themselves. 

At that time, Champoeg, a few miles above the 
falls of the Willamette and located pleasantly on the 
west bank of that river, was the chief settlement. 
There, on the seventh of February, 1841, a gather- 
ing of the settlers was held " for the purpose of con- 
sulting upon steps necessary to be taken for the 
formation- of laws, and the election of officers to 
execute them." Jason Lee, the Methodist missionary, 
was chairman of the meeting, and he outlined what he 
deemed the needed method of establishing a reign of 
law and order. The meeting proved rather a con- 
ference than an organisation and the people dispersed 
to meet again at the call of the chairman. 

A week later an event occurred which brought 
most forcibly to the minds of the settlers the need of 
better organisation. This was the death of Ewing 
Young, one of the most prominent men of the little 
community. He left considerable property, with no 
known heirs and no one to act as administrator. It 
became clear that some legal status must be estab- 
lished for the settlement. Another meeting was held, 
in which it was determined that a government be 
instituted, having the officers usual in an American 



iQo The Columbia River 

locality. The work of framing a constitution was 
entrusted to a committee, in which the five different 
elements, the Methodist missionaries, the Catholics, the 
French Canadians, the independent American settlers, 
and the English, had representation. The committee 
was instructed to confer with Conmiodore Wilkes of 
the American Exploring Squadron, just at that time 
in the River, and Dr. McLoughlin, the Hudson's Bay- 
magnate. Wilkes advised the settlers to wait for 
added strength and for the United States Government 
to throw its mantle over them. The committee de- 
cided that his advice was sound and indefinitely ad- 
journed. Constitution building rested for a time 
along the shores of the Willamette. 

In 1841 and 1842, two hundred and twenty Ameri- 
cans reached Oregon, doubling the population. 

The Americans were ill at ease without a govern- 
ment and kept agitating the question of another 
meeting. But the English and the Catholic influences 
opposed this. Some diplomacy was needed. The 
irrepressible Yankees were equal to it. They de- 
termined to draw the settlers together under the 
announcement of a meeting for the purpose of dis- 
cussing the means of protecting themselves against 
the ravages of the numerous wild beasts of the valley. 
W. H. Gray was the leading spirit in this enterprise. 
In a most picturesque and valuable account of it, John 
Minto has developed the thought that the founding of 
the Oregon State bore a striking resemblance to that 
stage in the Roman state, subsequently celebrated in 
the festival of Lupercalia, wherein the first organi- 
sation was for defence against the wild beasts. So 
the Willamette witnessed again the gathering of the 



Conflict for Possession of the River 191 

clans, Americans, English, French, half-breeds. Catho- 
lics, Protestants, Independents, all coming together to 
protect themselves against the bears, cougars, and 
wolves. The meetings were usually known thereafter 
as the " wolf meetings." 

James O'Neil was made chairman of this historic 
gathering. With the astuteness characteristic of 
American politicians, a previous understanding had 
been made between Mr. O'Neil and the little coterie 
of which Mr. Gray was the manager, that everything 
should be shaped to the ultimate end of raising the 
question of a government. As soon, therefore, as the 
ostensible aim of the meeting had been attained, W. 
PI. Gray arose and broached the all-important issue. 
After declaring that no one could question the wisdom 
and rightfulness of the measures looking to protecting 
their herds from wild beasts, he continued: 

How is itj fellow-citizens, with you and me, and our wives 
and children? Have we any organisation on which we can 
rely for mutual protection? Is there any power in the coun- 
try sufficient to protect us and all that we hold dear, from 
the worse than wild beasts that threaten and occasionally de- 
stroy our cattle? We have mutually and unitedly agreed to 
defend and protect our cattle and domestic animals; now, 
therefore, fellow-citizens, I submit and move the adoption 
of the two following resolutions, that we may have protection 
for our lives and persons, as well as our cattle and herds: 
Resolved that a committee be appointed to take into con- 
sideration the propriety of taking measures for the civil and 
military protection of this colony; Resolved that this com- 
mittee consist of twelve persons. 

There spoke the true voice of the American state- 
builder, the voice of the Declaration of Independence 
and the Constitution. The resolutions were passed 



192 The Columbia River 

and the committee of twelve appointed, mainly Ameri- 
cans. The committee met at the Falls of the Willa- 
mette, which by that time was becoming known as 
Oregon City. Unable to arrive at a definite decision, 
the committee issued a call for a general meeting at 
Champoeg on May 2d. 

Pending the meeting, there was a general policy 
of opposition developed among the French Canadians 
in the interest of the Hudson's Bay Company and 
England. This opposition threatened the overthrow 
of the entire plan. It was, however, checkmated in 
an interesting fashion. George W. Le Breton was 
one of the leading settlers and occupied a peculiar 
position. He was of French origin, from Baltimore 
to Oregon, and had been a Catholic. His existing affi- 
liations were with the Americans. He was keen, facile, 
and well educated. He discovered that the Canadians 
had been drilled to vote " No " on all questions, irre- 
spective of the bearing which such a vote might have 
on the leading issue. Le Breton accordingly proposed 
that measures be introduced upon which the Canadians 
ought to vote " Yes." These tactics were carried out. 
The Canadians were confused thereby. Le Breton 
watched developments carefully and, becoming satis- 
fied that he could command a majority, rose and 
exclaimed, "We can risk it, let us divide and count! " 
Gray shouted, " I second the motion ! " Jo Meek, 
famous as one of the Mountain Men, stepped out of 
the crowd and said, "Who is for a divide? All in 
favour of an organisation, follow me!" The Ameri- 
cans speedily gathered behind the tall form of the 
erstwhile trapper. A count followed. It was a close 
vote. Fifty-two voted for, and fifty against. The 



Conflict for Possession of the River 193 

Americans would have been outvoted had it not been 
that Le Breton, with two French Canadians, Fran9ois 
Matthieu and Etienne Lucier, voted with them. The 
defeated Canadians withdrew, and the Indians, who 
hned the banks of the River to discover what strange 
proceedings the white men were engaged in, per- 
ceived from the loud shouts of triumph that the 
" Bostons " had won. Though the victory was gained 
by so scanty a margin, it was gained, and it was de- 
cisive. It was one of the most interesting events in 
the history of Oregon or the United States, for it 
illustrates most vividly the inborn capacity of the 
American for self-government. 

The new government went at once into effect. 
The constitution formulated by the committee and 
adopted by the meeting at Champoeg provided that the 
people of Oregon should adopt laws and regulations 
until the United States extended its jurisdiction over 
them. Freedom of worship, habeas corpus, trial by 
jury, proportionate representation, and the usual civil 
rights of Americans were guaranteed. Education 
should be encouraged, lands and property should not 
be taken from Indians without their consent. Slavery 
or involuntary servitude should not exist. 

The officers of government consisted of a legisla- 
tive body of nine persons, an executive body of three, 
and a judiciary of a supreme judge and two justices 
of the peace, with a probate court and its justices, 
and a recorder and treasurer. Every white man of 
twenty-one years or more could vote. The laws of 
Iowa were designated to be followed in common 
practice. Marriage was allowed to males at sixteen 
and females at fourteen. One of the most important 



194 The Columbia River 

provisions was the land law. This permitted any- 
individual to claim a mile square, provided it be not 
on a town site or water-power, and that any mission 
claims already made be not affected, up to the limit 
of six miles square. This land law was framed upon 
the general conception of the proposed Linn bill al- 
ready brought before Congress. The land law allowed 
land to be taken in any form, but since there was no 
existing survey each man had to make his own survey. 

The first elected executive committee consisted of 
David Hill, Alanson Beers, and Joseph Gale. Within 
a year an amendment was made to the constitution 
providing for a governor. George Abernethy, a 
former member of the Methodist mission, was chosen 
to fill the place. 

Outer things were pretty crude in the little colony 
on the Willamette, though brains and energy were 
there in abundance. J. Quinn Thornton expressed 
himself as follows on the " Oregon State House," 
which he says was in several respects different from 
that in which laws are made at Washington City: 

The Oregon State House was built with posts set upright, 
one end set in the ground, grooved on two sides, and filled in 
with poles and split timber, such as would be suitable for 
fence rails, with plates and poles across the top. Rafters and 
horizontal poles, instead of iron ribs, held the cedar bark which 
was used instead of thick copper for roofing. It was twenty 
by forty feet and therefore did not cover three acres and a 
half. At one end some puncheons were put up for a platform 
for the president; some poles and slabs were placed around for 
seats; three planks, about a foot wide and twelve feet long, 
placed upon a sort of stake platform for a table, were all that 
was believed necessary for the use of the legislative committee 
and the clerks. 



Conflict for Possession of the River 195 

There are several facts in connection with the 
inauguration of this Provisional Government of Ore- 
gon which are almost equal to itself in interest. One 
of these is that Peter H. Burnett, a lawyer and the 
most notable member of the emigration of 1843, ren- 
dered the opinion that, by the spirit of American 
institutions, the Provisional Government might be re- 
garded as possessing valid authority. Going in a 
few years to California, Mr. Burnett incorporated the 
same principles into the government of that State and 
became its first governor. 

Another most significant fact was the attitude of 
the Hudson's Bay Company. That great organisation 
was of course opposed to American ownership and to 
the Provisional Government. At first, the management 
under Sir James Douglas (Dr. McLoughlin had 
been superseded by Douglas because of his supposed 
leaning toward the Americans) affected to ignore the 
government framed at Champoeg, declaring loftily that 
the company could protect itself. Dr. JNIcLoughlin, 
in his very interesting account of this, says that the 
Americans adopted in 1845 a provision in the consti- 
tution that no one should be called to do any act 
contrary to his allegiance. This provision struck him 
as designed to enable British subjects to join the 
organisation. Dr. JNlcLoughlin was so pleased with 
the wise and liberal spirit which this evinced that he 
prevailed on Douglas to join the Provisional Govern- 
ment. The family was now complete. The Ameri- 
can farmers and immigrants and missionaries had 
triumphed over the autocratic government of the great 
fur company. The American idea — government of 
the people, by the people, and for the people — was 



196 The Columbia River 

vindicated. The local battle was won for the Yankee. 

Before leaving this great epoch of the history of 
the River, it will interest the reader to know that Dr. 
McLoughlin, so conspicuous in the story thus far, re- 
moved to Oregon City, and became an avowed Ameri- 
can citizen, living on the claim on which he filed at ' 
the Falls. Much trouble subsequently arose between 
him and the Methodist mission people represented 
by Rev. A. F. Waller. Harder yet. Congress was 
led by Delegate Thurston of Oregon, to exclude him 
from the benefit of the Donation Land Law. The 
final result was that the great-hearted ex-king of the 
Columbia lost the most of his claim on the ground 
that he was an alien at the time of taking it. The 
Hudson's Bay Company directors chose to disapprove 
his acts in bestowing provisions upon the weary and 
hungry and ragged American immigrants, and they 
charged him personally with the cost. This, in ad- 
dition to the loss of his claim, rendered him almost 
penniless and sadly embittered his old age. He said 
that he supposed he was becoming an American, but 
found that he was neither American nor British, but 
was without a country. It is pleasant to be able to 
record the fact that the Oregon Legislature restored 
his land in so far as the State controlled it, but this 
was not until after his death. 

Of all the brave and big-souled men who bore their 
part in redeeming Oregon and the Columbia from tl e 
wilderness, John McLoughlin has stood at the head ('f 
the column, side by side with Marcus Whitman, the 
American physician and missionary. Though identi- 
fied at first with rival interests and conflicting aims, 
McLoughlin and Whitman had many traits in com- 



Conflict for Possession of the River 197 

mon, and the story of their lives and life-work in 
Oregon should be written in one chapter. No one 
that ever knew or sympathised with Oregon history 
has failed to give his meed of praise to both Whitman 
and McLoughlin. No one ever stood on the hill at 
Waiilatpu and viewed the mission home of Whitman 
in the fertile vale of the Walla Walla, the scene of 
martyrdom and anguish, without joining it in mind 
with the expanse of the Columbia at Vancouver and 
recalling "White Eagle," and his large-minded and 
humane lordship for twenty years of the land of the 
Oregon. Nor can one withhold the thrill of indigna- 
tion at the cold-blooded commercialism of the Hud- 
son's Bay Company, and at the petty ingratitude of 
some Americans, which together brought darkness to 
the old hero's last days. 

But though American Democracy was winning a 
bloodless triumph on the Columbia, it seemed by no 
means certain that American diplomacy would win 
on the Potomac. Webster, as Secretary of State 
under Harrison and during part of Tyler's admini- 
stration, represented the conservative councils of the 
New England seaboard, and was inclined to yield to 
England in respect to the Oregon boundary. 

Senator Linn of Missouri was the most steadfast 
friend of American occupancy. He was the one to 
frame land bills to encourage American immigration, 
and in his hands the memorials of the settlers on the 
Columbia had been placed. But in 1843, he died, 
with his work undone. Benton, his colleague, had 
meanwhile become fully as pronounced, and he pur- 
sued the same policy with uncompromising and volcanic 
energy. 



19^ The Columbia River 

But a curious and anomalous alignment of in- 
terests and parties now arose. The Oregon question 
became entangled with those of Texas and slavery. 
Callioun became Tyler's Secretary of State upon 
Webster's resignation. While the Democrats in gen- 
eral were more inclined to western expansion than 
the Whigs, yet the slaveholders of the South were 
much more interested in Texas than in Oregon. The 
Provisional Government of Oregon had prohibited 
slavery. Calhoun was ready to fight Mexico for the 
possession of Texas, but he did not want to fight 
England for possession of Oregon. Nevertheless, he 
did not dare to offend the West b}^ a square back- 
down on Oregon. He therefore adopted a policy of 
" masterly inactivity." He believed that if war arose 
with England, we would lose " every inch of Oregon," 
for England could hurry a fleet to the Columbia 
River from China in six weeks, whereas American 
ships would have to double Cape Horn, and an 
American army would have to cross the continent 
under every disadvantage of transportation. But 
time, he believed, would win all for the Americans. 

In this conception, Von Hoist thinks Calhoun was 
wise. Roosevelt in his Life of Benton ^ thinks that the 
war, if there had been war, would haA^e been fought 
out in Canada, and that, while Calhoun was not 
wrong in desiring delay, he should never have abated 
one jot in demanding all of Oregon up to 54 de- 
grees 40 minutes. 

The Democratic platform on which Polk was 
elected President, demanded " 54 degrees 40 minutes," 
and, in popular clamour, the words, " or fight," were 
added. Oregon, Texas, and slavery were practically 



Conflict for Possession of the River 199 

the issues on which Polk was elected. His inaugural 
address declared our title to Oregon to be " clear and 
unquestionable." Great excitement ensued, for if 
Congress stood by the President, war was almost in- 
evitable, ' unless England yielded. To the surprise of 
the world, however, James Buchanan, the yielding, 
not to say shifty. Secretary of State under the new 
administration, now announced the willingness of our 
Government to compromise on the line of 49 degrees. 
But here another complication ensued, Pakenham, 
the British envoy, declined, in almost insulting terms, 
to accept 49 degrees. Polk thereupon withdrew the 
proposition and in his next message stated that " no 
compromise which the United States ought to accept 
can be effected." At the same time he advised the 
cancellation of the Joint Occupation Treaty. It 
seemed now that the conflict between the nations for 
the possession of the River would surely eventuate in 
war. Senator Cass of INIichigan fanned the flame by 
a speech declaring that " War is almost upon us." 
The committees on Foreign Relations in both House 
and Senate proposed resolutions to notify England 
at once of the close of the Joint Occupation Treaty. 
Excitement rose to fierce heat, and the standing of 
marine risks and commercial ventures at once showed 
the popular sentiment. "Fifty-four, forty, or fight!" 
was the spirit of Congress. 

But now Calhoun, who was again in the Senate, but 
still managing the Oregon Question, found himself be- 
twixt the devil and the deep sea. He did not really wish 
to get all of Oregon, for fear of the effect of slavery. 
Yet he dared not throw cold water on the tremendous 
spirits of patriotism and ambition in the West de- 



2^ The Columbia River 

manding Oregon. A compromise was the only recourse. 
Powerful men of the " Moderates " in both England 
and the United States brought their influence to bear. 
Callioun caused Lord Aberdeen, Foreign Secretary 
of England, to understand that the President would 
agam take up the line of 49 degrees. Lord Aber- 
deen directed Pakenham to revive the negotiations 
which had been somewhat rudely broken off. The 
Senate reconsidered the situation more calmly and 
opened the way to a new treaty. This was con- 
summated and signed by President Polk on June 15 
1846, and confirmed by the Senate on June 19th.' 
The Ime of 49 degrees was accepted. The Great 
River was divided by that line nearly equally between 
the two nations, there being about seven hundred and 
htty miles m American territory and six hundred and 
nfty in British. 

The decision of the ownership of the River was 
one of the most momentous in American history. If 
we had not got Oregon, we probably would not have 
got California. And without the Pacific Coast, the 
history of the Great Repubhc would be essentially 
different and the history of the world would be 
essentially different. 

The Oregon Question owed much of its interest to 
Its very complicated nature. It was at first a ques- 
tion between the governments of five different 
nations, England, France, Russia, Spain, and the 
Umted States. In time it became a question between 
England and the United States. Then it was a 
question between Oregon immigrants and British 
Fur Company. Then it became a question between 
slavery and freedom. This was still further com- 



Conflict for Possession of the River 201 

plicated by the fact that it was also a question between 
West, East, and South. Different factions of dif- 
ferent parties still further complicated it. It was in 
truth a manifold question, and in its final solution we 
read some of the most vital of American traits and 
movements. Out of it all the settlers of the River 
may justly be said to have emerged with highest 
credit. The American home-builder, the great De- 
mocracy of the West, the inborn impulse to expand 
and to nationalise, — these were the essential factors 
in the triumph. The settlers on the Willamette, the 
constitution-makers of Champoeg, the immigrants and 
the missionaries, had already gained the day before 
diplomacy took up the question. 



CHAPTER IX 

The Times of Tomahawk and Fire-Brand 

Extent of Indian Troubles in the Region of the Columbia — Destruc- 
tion of the Tonqidn — Conflicting Policies of the British and the 
Americans in Regard to the Fur-trade — Advances in Settlement 
by Americans, and Indian Opposition — The Whitman Mission 
and its Relations to the Indians, and to the Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany — The Pestilence of 1847 — The Whitman Massacre — Mr. 
Osborne's Reminiscences — Saving of the Lapwai and Tshimakain 
Missions — The Cayuse War — Great War of 1855-56 — Kamiakin 
and Peupeumoxmox — Governor I. I. Stevens of Washington 
Territory and his Efforts to Make Treaties — The Walla Walla 
Council and the Division among the Indians — Pearson and his 
Ride — Outburst of Hostilities and the Destruction that Followed 
— Conflict between the Regulars and the Volunteers — Battles of 
Walla Walla, Cascades, and Grande Ronde — Second Walla Walla 
Council — An Unsatisfactory Peace — Continued Incoming of Pros- 
pectors and Land-seekers — Third Indian War — Disasti'ous Step- 
toe Campaign — Garnett's Campaign in the Yakima — Wright's 
Campaign to Spokane and Overthrow of Indian Power — Peace 
Proclaimed and the Country Thrown Open to Settlement — Nez 
Perce War of 1877 — Hallakallakeen, or Joseph, the Indian War- 
chief — His Melancholy Fate — The Bannock War. 

COLUMBIA RIVER history has had its full 
share of Indian wars. To narrate these in full 
would transcend the limits of this chapter. 
Even during the era of discovery desperate affrays 
with the natives were a common experience of ex- 
plorers. Captain Gray of the Columbia lost a boat's 
crew of seamen at Tillamook. The ship Boston was 
seized in 1803 by the wily old chief Maquinna at 
Nootka. 



The Times of Tomahawk and Fire-Brand 203 

In 1812 the Tonquin, the first vessel of the Pacific 
Fur Company, in command of Captain Thorn, was 
captured at some point to the north of the Columbia 
River, variously known as Eyuck Whoola on Newcetu 
Bay, or Newity Bay, or Newcetee. She was, as a 
result of the capture, blown up by the explosion of 
her own powder magazine. Gabriel Franchere and 
Alexander Ross, of the Astoria party, are the original 
authorities for this dramatic story. Irving has made 
the event a leading feature of his charming Astoria. 
H. H. Bancroft has discussed it at length in his his- 
tory of the Pacific Coast. In recent years General H. 
M. Chittenden in his valuable book, History of the 
American Fur Trade ^ presents new testimony of much 
interest. But whatever discrepencies existed in the 
records, the general truth remains that the ship and 
all her crew, with the exception of one Indian, dis- 
appeared, and great was the loss to the traders at 
Astoria as a result. 

For more than three decades after the destruction 
of the Tonquin there were no serious Indian conflicts. 
The Hudson's Bay Company carried out consistently 
the general policy of harmony with the natives. ^lost 
of the employees were of French Canadian origin, and, 
with their general sociability, they were more popular 
with the Indians than the Americans usually have 
been. But with the incoming of American mission- 
aries, trappers, explorers, and immigrants, the situation 
changed. Conflicts of interests, ambitions, and na- 
tional aims led both Americans and British to be 
somewhat more ready to encourage the hostile and 
suspicious disposition of the natives. Chiefly, how- 
ever, the cause of the changing attitude of the natives 



204 The Columbia River 

must be attributed to the perception by the more 
intelHgent of the fact that the actual occupation of 
the country by white farmers, home builders, and 
land owners, meant their own destruction. Though 
this truth dawned on them only vaguely and gradu- 
ally, they had begun to be somewhat familiar with it 
by the decade of the thirties. 

The founding of American missions during that 
decade, as narrated earlier, at Chemeketa, Walla 
Walla, Lapwai, and Tshimakain, and, during the 
years following, the obvious intent of the Americans 
to draw immigration to the country, prepared the 
way for the first and perhaps the most ferocious, 
though by no means the greatest, of the four prin- 
cipal wars which we plan to consider. This first one 
was the war connected with the Whitman massacre. 

We have already described the founding of the 
Whitman Mission at Waiilatpu, six miles from the 
present site of Walla Walla, and twenty-six miles 
from the Hudson's Bay fort on the Columbia, known 
as Fort Walla Walla. We have also told of Whit- 
man's journey across the continent in the mid-winter 
of 1842-43, of his efforts to secure the attention of 
Congress and of the Executive to the importance of 
the Oregon country, and of his return to Walla 
Walla in 1843, with the first large immigration of 
American settlers. 

After the incoming of this immigration, it became 
more than ever clear to the more intelligent Indians 
that this movement of settlers portended a change in 
their whole condition. Their wild life could not co- 
exist with farming, houses, and the fixed and nar- 
rowed limits of the white man's life. Moreover, since 



The Times of Tomahawk and Fire-Brand 205 

they saw the antagonism between the Americans and 
the Hudson's Bay Company, and since the latter was 
obviously more favourable to perpetuating the life of 
the wilderness, the natives were naturally drawn into 
sympathy with the latter. Still further, since the 
Americans were Protestants and naturally affiliated 
with the Whitman Mission and its associated mis- 
sions, and since the Hudson's Bay people were mainly 
Catholics and interested in maintaining the mission- 
ary methods adapted to the regime of the fur-traders, 
there became injected into the situation the dangerous 
element of religious jealousy. 

Dr. Whitman perceived that he was standing on 
the edge of a powder magazine, and, during the 
summer of 1847, he arranged to acquire the mission 
property of the Methodists at The Dalles, a hundred 
and sixty miles down the River, intending to remove 
thither in the spring. But meanwhile, the explosives 
being all ready, the spark was prepared for igniting 
them. 

During the summer of 1847 measles became epi- 
demic among the Indians. Their method of treating 
any disease of which fever was a part was to enter 
a pit into which hot rocks had been thrown, then 
casting water on the rocks, to create a dense vapour, 
in which, stripped of clothing, they would remain 
until thoroughly steamed. Thence issuing, stark 
naked and dripping with perspiration, they would 
plunge into an icy cold stream. Death was the al- 
most inevitable result in case of measles. Whitman, 
who was, it should be remembered, a physician, not a 
clergyman, was skilful and devoted in his attentions, 
yet many died. Now just at that time a renegade 



2o6 The Columbia River 

half-breed known as Jo Lewis seems to have become 
possessed with the diabolical mania of massacre. He 
made the Indians think that Whitman was poisoning 
them. Istickus or Sticcus, a Umatilla Indian and a 
warm friend of Whitman, had formed some impres- 
sion of the plot and suggested the danger. Whit- 
man's intrepid spirit laughed at this, but ]Mrs. 
Whitman, though equallj^ intrepid, seems to have felt 
some premonition of the svvift coming doom, for the 
mission children found her in tears for the first time 
since the death of her beloved little girl eight years 
before. The Doctor tried to soothe her by declaring 
that he would arrange to go down the River at once. 
Survivors tell us that on November 28, 1847, the pic- 
turesque little hill rising a hundred feet above the 
mission ground, now surmounted by the granite shaft 
of the Whitman monument, was observed to be black 
with Indians. It was evident from various sinister 
aspects that something was impending. 

On the next day, November 29th, at about one 
o'clock, while Dr. Whitman sat reading, a number of 
Indians entered the room. Having gained his at- 
tention by the usual request for medicines, one of 
them, afterwards said by some to have been Tamahas, 
and by others have been Tamsaky, rushed suddenly 
upon the Doctor and struck his head with a toma- 
hawk. Another wretch named Telaukait, to whom 
the Doctor had been the kindest friend, then cut and 
hacked the noble face of the philanthropist. The work 
of murder thus inaugurated went on with savage 
energy. The men about the mission were speedily 
slain, with the exception of a few who were in re- 
mote places and managed by special fortune to 



The Times of Tomahawk and Fire-Brand 207 

elude observation. ]Mrs. Whitman, bravely coming 
forward to succour her dying husband, was shot in 
the breast and sank to the floor. She did not die at 
once, and it is said by some of the survivors, then 
children, that she lingered some time, being heard to 
murmur most tender prayers for her parents and 
children. Mrs. Whitman was the only w^oman killed. 
The other women and girls were cruelly outraged and 
held in captivity for several days. 

William McBean was at that time in charge of the 
fort at Walla Walla, and with a strange disregard of 
humane feelings, he shut the door of the fort in the 
face of one of the escaped Americans, and a little 
later served the Osborne family in the same manner. 
McBean sent a courier down the River to convey the 
tidings to Vancouver, but this courier did not even 
stop at The Dalles to warn the people, though they 
were not attacked. James Douglas was then chief 
factor at Vancouver, as successor to Dr. INIcLoughlin. 
As soon as he was apprised of the massacre, he sent 
Peter Skeen Ogden with a force to rescue the sur- 
vivors. Ogden acted with promptness and efficiency, 
and by the use of several hundred dollars' worth of 
commodities ransomed forty-seven women and child- 
ren. Thirteen persons had been murdered. 

One of the most distressing experiences was that 
of the Osborne family. Of this Mr. Osborne says: 

As the guns fired and the yells commenced I leaned my 
head upon the bed and committed myself and family to my 
Maker. My wife removed the loose floor. I dropped under 
the floor with my sick family in their night clothes, taking only 
two woollen sheets, a piece of bread, and some cold mush, and 
pulled the floor over us. In five minutes the room was full of 



2o8 The Columbia River 

Indians, but they did not discover us. The roar of guns, the 
yells of the savages, and the crash of clubs and knives and the 
groans of the dying continued till dark. We distinctly heard 
the dying groans of Mrs. Whitman, Mr. Rogers, and Francis, 
till they died away one after the other. We heard the last 
words of Mr. Rogers in a slow voice calling " Come, Lord 
Jesus, come quickly." Soon after this I removed the floor and 
we went out. W^e saw the white face of Francis by the door. 
It was warm as we laid our hand upon it, but he was dead. 
I carried my two youngest children, who were sick, and my 
wife held on to my clothes in her great weakness. We had 
all been sick with measles. Two infants had died. She had 
not left her bed in six weeks till that day, when she stood up 
a few minutes. The naked, painted Indians were dancing the 
scalp dance around a large fire at a little distance. There 
seemed no hope for us and we knew not which way to go, but 
bent our steps toward Fort Walla Walla. A dense cold fog 
shut out every star and the darkness was complete. We could 
see no trail and not even the hand before the face. We 
had to feel out the trail with our feet. My wife almost fainted 
but staggered along. Mill Creek, which we had to wade, was 
high with late rains and came up to the waist. My wife in 
her great weakness came nigh washing down, but held to my 
clothes. I braced myself with a stick, holding a child in one 
arm. I had to cross five times for the children. The water 
was icy cold and the air freezing some. Staggering along 
about two miles, Mrs. Osborne fainted and could go no farther, 
and we hid ourselves in the brush of the Walla Walla River, 
not far below Tamsukey's (a chief) lodges, who was very ac- 
tive at the commencement of the butchery. We were thor- 
oughly wet, and the cold fog like snow was about us. The cold 
mud was partially frozen as we crawled, feeling our way, 
into the dark brush. We could see nothing, the darkness was 
so extreme. I spread one wet sheet down on the frozen 
ground; wife and children crouched upon it. I covered the 
other over them. I thought they must soon perish as they 
were shaking and their teeth rattling with cold. I kneeled 
down and commended us to my Maker. The day finally 
dawned and we could see the Indians riding furiously up and 



The Times of Tomahawk and Fire-Brand 209 

down the trail. Sometimes they would come close to the brush 
and our blood would warm and the shaking would stop from 
fear for a moment. The day seemed a week. Expected every 
moment my wife would breathe her last. Tuesday night, felt 
our way to the trail and staggered along to Sutucksnina (Dog 
Creek), which we waded as we did the other creek, and kept 
on about two miles when my wife fainted and could go no 
farther. Crawled into the brush and frozen mud to shake 
and suffer on from hunger and cold, and without sleep. The 
children, too, wet and cold, called incessantly for food, but 
the shock of groans and yells at first so frightened them that 
they did not speak loud. Wednesday night my wife was too 
weak to stand. I took our second child and started for Walla 
Walla; had to wade the Touchet; stopped frequently in the 
brush from weakness ; had not recovered from measles. Heard 
a horseman pass and repass as I lay concealed in the willows. 
Have since learned that it was Mr. Spalding. Reached Fort 
Walla Walla after daylight; begged Mr. McBean for horses 
to get my family, for food, for blankets, and clothing to take 
to them, and to take care of my child till I could bring my 
family in, should I live to find them alive. Mr. McBean told 
me I could not bring my family to his fort. 

Mr. Hall came in on Monday night, but he could not have 
an American in his fort, and he had put him over the Colum- 
bia River; that he could not let me have horses or anything 
for my wife and children, and I must go to Umatilla. I in- 
sisted on bringing my family to the fort, but he refused ; said 
he would not let us in. I next begged the priests to show 
pity, as my wife and children must perish and the Indians 
undoubtedly would kill me, with no success. I then begged 
to leave my child who was not safe in the fort, but they 
refused. 

There were many priests in the fort. Mr. McBean gave 
me breakfast, but I saved most of it for my family. Provi- 
dentially Mr. Stanley, an artist, came in from Colville, nar- 
rowly escaped the Cayuse Indians by telling them he was 
" Alain " H. B. He let me have his two horses, some food he 
had left from Rev. Eells and Walker's mission; also a cap, a 
pair of socks, a shirt, and handkerchief, and Mr. McBean fur- 



2IO The Columbia River 

nished an Indian who proved most faithful, and Thursday 
night we started back, taking my child, but with a sad heart 
that I could not find mercy at the hands of the priests of God. 
The Indian guided me in the thick darkness to where I sup- 
posed I had left my dear wife and children. We could see 
nothing and dared not call aloud. Daylight came and I was 
exposed to Indians, but we continued to search till I was about 
to give up in despair when the Indian discovered one of the 
twigs I had broken as a guide in coming out to the trail. 
Following these he soon found my wife and children still 
alive. I distributed what little food and clothing I had, and 
we started for the Umatilla, the guide leading the way to a 
ford. 

Mr. McBean came and asked who was there. I replied. 
He said he could not let us in; we must go to Umatilla or 
he would put us over the river, as he had Mr. Hall. My wife 
replied she would die at the gate but she would not leave. 
He finally opened and took us into a secret room and sent an 
allowance of food for us every day. Next day I asked -him 
for blankets for my sick wife to lie on. He had nothing. 
Next day I urged again. He had nothing to give, but would 
sell a blanket out of the store. I told him I had lost every- 
thing, and had nothing to pay; but if I should live to get to 
the Willamette I would pay. He consented. But the hip- 
bones of my dear wife wore through the skin on the hard 
floor. Stickus, the chief, came in one day and took the cap 
from his head and gave it to me, and a handkerchief to my 
child. 

The Whitman massacre was a prelude to the 
Cayuse War. It should be remembered that, the 
year before the massacre, the Oregon country had, by 
treaty with Great Britain, become the property of 
the United States. No regular government had yet 
been inaugurated, but the Provisional Government al- 
ready instituted by the Americans met on December 
9th and provided for sending fourteen companies of 
volunteers to the Walla Walla. These were im- 



i 



The Times of Tomahawk and Fire-Brand 211 

migrants who had come to seek homes and their 
section of land, and it was a great sacrifice for them to 
leave their families and start in mid- winter for the u^^per 
Columbia. But ihey bravely and cheerfully obeyed 
the call of duty and set forth, furnishing mainly their 
own equipment, without a thought of pecuniary gain 
or even reimbursement. Cornelius Gilliam, an im- 
migrant of 1845 from Missouri, was chosen colonel of 
the regiment. He was a man of great energy and 
courage, and though not a professional soldier, — none 
of them were, — had the frontier American's capacity 
for warfare. The command pushed rapidly forward, 
their way being disputed at various points. At Sand 
Hollows the Indians, led by Five Crows and War 
Eagle, made an especially tenacious attempt to prevent 
the crossing of the Umatilla River. Five Crows claimed 
to have wizard powers by which he could stop all 
bullets, and War Eagle declared that he could swallow 
all balls fired at him. But at the first onset the wizard 
was so badly wounded that he had to retire and " Swal- 
low Ball " was killed. Tom McKay had levelled his 
rifle and said, " Let him swallow this." 

The way was now clear to Waiilatpu, which the 
command reached on March 4th. The mangled re- 
mains of the victims of the massacre had been hastily 
interred by the Ogden party, but coyotes had partially 
exhumed them. The remains were brought together 
by the volunteers and reverently, though rudely, buried 
at a point near the mission, a place where a marble 
crypt now encloses the commingled bones of the mar- 
tyrs. A lock of long, fair hair was found near the 
ruined mission ground whicli was thought surely to 
be from the head of Mrs. Whitman. It was preserved 



212 The Columbia River 

by one of the volunteers and is now one of the 
precious relics in the historical museum of Whitman 
College. 

The Cayuse War dragged along in a desultory 
fashion for nearly three years. The refusal of the 
Nez Perces and Spokanes and the indifference of the 
Yakimas to join the Cayuses made their cause hopeless, 
though there were several fierce fights with them and 
much severe campaigning. In 1850 a band of friendly 
Umatilla Indians undertook to capture the chief band 
of the Cayuses under Tamsaky, which had taken a 
strong position about the head waters of the John Day 
River. After a savage battle Tamsaky was killed and 
most of the warriors captured. Of these, five, charged 
with the leading part in the Whitman massacre, were 
hanged at Oregon City on June 3, 1850. It remains 
a question to this day, however, whether the victims 
of the gallows were really the guilty ones. The Cay- 
use Indians were quite firm in their assertion that 
Tamahas, who, by one version, struck Dr. Whitman 
the first blow, was the only one of the five concerned 
in the murder. 

Thus ended the first principal war in the Columbia 
Basin. It was quickly followed by another, which 
was so extensive that it may be well called universal. 
This was the War of 1855-56. This was the greatest 
Indian war in the entire history of the Columbia River. 

As we have seen, the American home-builders had 
outmatched the English fur-traders in the struggle 
for possession. On the 3d of March, 1853, Wash- 
ington Territory, embracing the present States of 
Washington and Idaho, with parts of Wyoming and 
Montana, was created by Act of Congress, and Isaac 



^=1 




The Times of Tomahawk and Fire-Brand 213 

I. Stevens was appointed governor. This remarkable 
man entered with tremendous energy upon his task 
of organising the chaos of his great domain. The 
Indian problem was obviously the most dangerous 
and pressing one. There were at that time two re- 
markable chiefs of the mid-Columbia region, natural 
successors of Philip, Pontiac, Black Hawk, and Te- 
cumseh, possessing those Indian traits of mingled 
nobleness and treachery which have made the best speci- 
mens of the race such interesting objects of study. 
These Indians were Kamiakin of the Yakimas, and 
Peupeumoxmox of the Walla Wallas. 

In 1855 the great war broke out almost simul- 
taneously at different points. There were six widely 
scattered regions especially concerned. Four of these, 
the Cascades, the Yakima Valley, the Walla Walla, 
and the Grande Ronde, were on or adjacent to the 
River. The others were the Rogue River region and 
Puget Sound. So wide was the area of this war that 
intelligent co-operation among the Indians proved im- 
practicable. This, in fact, was the thing that saved 
the whites. For there were probably not less than 
four thousand Indians on the war-path, and if they 
had co-operated, the smaller settlements, possibly all 
in the country except those in the Willamette Valley, 
might have been annihilated. 

The first efforts of Governor Stevens were to 
secure treaties with the Indians. Having negotiated 
several treaties in 1854 with the Puget Sound In- 
dians, the governor passed over the Cascade Moun- 
tains to Walla Walla in May, 1855. There during 
the latter part of May and first part of June, he 
held a great council with representatives of seventeen 



214 The Columbia River 

tribes. Lieutenant Kip, U. S. A., has preserved a 
vivid account of this great gathering, one of the 
most important ever held in the annals of Indian 
history. According to Lieutenant Kip, there were 
but about fifty men in the escort of the daring 
governor, and if he had ^been a man sensible to fear 
he might well have been startled when there came an 
army of twenty-five hundred Nez Perces under Hal- 
haltlossot, known as Lawyer by the whites. Two 
days later three hundred Cayuses, those worst of the 
Columbia River Indians, surly and scowling, led by 
Five Crows and Young Chief, made their appearance. 
Two days later a force of two thousand Yakimas, 
Umatillas, and Walla Wallas came in sight under 
Kamiakin and Peupeumoxmox. The council was soon 
organised. Governor Stevens and General Palmer, 
the latter the Indian Agent for Oregon, set forth 
their plan of reservations, all their speeches being 
translated and retranslated until they had filtered 
down among the general mass of the Indians. Then 
there must be a great " wawa," or discussion by the 
Indians. It soon became apparent that there were 
two bitterly contesting parties. One was a large 
faction of Nez Perces led by Lawyer, who favoured 
the whites. The other faction of the Nez Perces, with 
all the remaining tribes, were set against any treaty. 
With remarkable skill and patience, Governor Stevens, 
with the powerful assistance of Lawyer, had brought 
the Indians to a point of general agreement to the 
creation of a system of reservations. But suddenly 
there was a commotion. Into the midst of the coun- 
cil there burst the old chief Looking Glass (Apashwa- 
hayikt), second only to Lawyer in influence among 



The Times of Tomahawk and Fire-Brand 215 

the Nez Perces. He had made a desperate ride of 
three hundred miles in seven days, following a buffalo 
hunt and a raid against the Blackfeet, and as he now 
burst into the midst, there dangled from his belt the 
scalps of several slaughtered Blackfeet. As quoted 
in Hazard Stevens's Life of Governor Stevens, he be- 
gan his harangue thus : *' My people, what have 
you done? While I was gone you sold my country. 
I have come home and there is not left me a place 
on which to pitch my lodge. Go home to your lodges. 
I will talk with j'ou." Lieutenant Kip declares that 
though he could understand nothing of the speech of 
Looking Glass to his own tribe, which followed, the 
effect was tremendous. All the evidence showed that 
Looking Glass was a veritable Demosthenes. The 
work of Governor Stevens was all undone. 

But later the Governor and Lawyer succeeded in 
rallying their forces and gaining the acquiescence of 
the Indians to the setting aside of three great reser- 
vations, one on the Umatilla, one on the Yakima, and 
the third on the Clearwater and the Snake. These 
reservations still exist, imperial domains in themselves, 
though now divided into individual allotments. The 
acquiescence of the Indians in this treaty, as the 
sequel proved, was feigned by a number of them, but 
for the time it seemed a great triumph for Governor 
Stevens. From Walla Walla the Governor departed 
to the Coeur d'Alene, the Pend Oreille, and the JMis- 
soula regions to continue his arduous task of nego- 
tiating treaties. 

This great Walla Walla Council cannot be dis- 
missed without brief reference to an event, not fully 
known at the time, but which subsequent investiga- 



2i6 The Columbia River 

tion made clear, and stamped as one of the most 
dramatic in the entire history of Indian warfare. 
This event was the conspiracy of the Cayuses and 
Yakimas to kill Governor Stevens and his entire 
band, and then exterminate the whites throughout 
the country. While the acceptance of the treaty was 
still pending, Kamiakin and Peupeumoxmox were 
framing the details of this wide-reaching plot, which 
was indeed but the culmination of their great scheme 
of years. Kamiahkin was the soul of the conspiracy. 
He was a remarkable Indian. He was of superb 
stature, and proportions, over six feet high, sinewy 
and active. Governor Stevens said of him: "He is 
a peculiar man, reminding me of the panther and 
the grizzly bear. His countenance has an extra- 
ordinary play, one moment in frowns, the next in 
smiles, flashing with light and black as Erebus the 
same instant. His pantomime is great, and his gesti- 
culation much and characteristic. He talks mostly 
in his face and with his hands and arms." He was 
withal a typical Indian in treachery and secretiveness. 
Peupeumoxmox was similar in nature, but was older 
and less capable. 

Exactly opposite to these was Halhaltlossot, or 
Lawyer, the Solon of the Nez Perces. Lawyer be- 
came convinced of the existence of this conspiracy 
and went by night to the camp of Governor Stevens 
and revealed it. He concluded his revelation by 
saying : "I will come with my family and pitch my 
lodge in the midst of your camp, that those Cayuses 
may see that you and your party are under the pro- 
tection of the head chief of the Nez Perces." When 
it became clear to the conspiring Cayuses and Yaki- 



The Times of Tomahawk and Fire-Brand 217 

mas that Lawyer's powerful division of the Nez 
Perces was sustaining the Httle band of whites, they 
did not execute their design. Lawyer and his Nez 
Perces saved the day for the whites. 

And yet the sequel is one of the most lamentable ex- 
amples of the miscarriage of justice in Indian affairs 
that we have any record of. The friendly Nez 
Perces saved the whites. The unfriendly faction of 
the Nez Perces, led by Joseph and Looking Glass, 
finally yielded and accepted the treaty. But they 
did this with certain expectations in regard to their 
reservation. This was set forth to the author by 
William McBean, a half-breed Indian, son of the 
McBean who was the commandant of the Hudson's 
Bay post at Wallula. McBean the younger was a 
boy at the time of the council at Walla Walla. He 
was familiar with all the Indian languages spoken at 
the council and in appearance was so much of an 
Indian that he could pass unquestioned anywhere. 
Governor Stevens asked him to spy out the situation 
and learn what the Nez Perces were going to decide. 
The result of his investigations was to show that the 
whole decision hinged on the understanding by Joseph's 
faction that, if they acquiesced in the treaty and turned 
their support to the whites, they might retain per- 
petual possession of the Wallowa country in North- 
eastern Oregon as their special allotment. Becoming 
finally satisfied that this would be granted them, they 
yielded to the Lawyer faction and thus the entire 
Nez Perce tribe made common cause with the whites, 
rendering the execution of the great plot of Kamiakin 
and Peupeumoxmox a foredoomed failure. But now 
for the sequel. Though it was thus clear in the minds of 



21 8 The Columbia River 

Joseph and his division of the Nez Perces that the I 
loved Wallowa (one of the fairest regions that ever 
the sun shone on and a perfect land for Indians) was 
to be their permanent home, yet the stipulation, if 
indeed it were intended by Governor Stevens, never 
became definitely set down in the " Great Father's " 
records at Washington. The result was that when, 
twenty years later, the manifold attractions of the 
Wallowa country began to draw white immigration, 
the Indians, now under Young Joseph, son of the 
former chief, stood by their supposed rights and the 
great Nez Perce War of 1877 ensued. 

And now, to resume the thread of our discourse, 
we may note that Governor Stevens proceeded on his 
laborious mission to the Flatheads in the region of 
the Coeur d'Alene and Pend Oreille lakes in what is 
now Northern Idaho. After protracted and at times 
excited discussion, a treaty was accepted by which an 
immense tract of a million and a quarter acres was 
set apart for a reservation. From Pend Oreille, 
Governor Stevens with his little force, now reduced 
to twenty-two, crossed the Rockies to Fort Benton. 

But what w^as happening on the Walla Walla? 
No sooner was the governor fairly out of sight 
across the flower-bespangled plains which extended 
two hundred miles north-east from Walla Walla, 
than the wily Kamiakin began to resume his plots. 
So successful was he, with the valuable assistance of 
Peupeumoxmox, Young Chief, and Five Crows, that 
the treaties, just ratified, were torn to shreds, and the 
flame of savage warfare burst forth across the entire 
Columbia Valley. 

Hazard Stevens, in his invaluable history of his 



The Times of Tomahawk and Fire-Brand 219 

father, gives a vivid picture of how the news reached 
them in their camp thirty-five miles up the IMissouri 
from Fort Benton. Summer had now passed into 
autumn. A favourable treaty had been made with 
the Blackfeet. On October 29th, the little party were 
gathered around their campfire in the frosty air of 
fall in that high altitude, when they discerned a 
solitary rider making his way slowly toward them. 
As he drew near they soon saw that it was Pear- 
son, the express rider. Pearson was one of the 
best examples of those scouts whose lives were spent 
in conveying messages from forts to parties in the 
field. He usually travelled alone, and his life was 
always in his hand. He seemed to be made of steel 
springs, and it had been thought that he could en- 
dure anything. " He could ride anything that wore 
hair." He rode seventeen hundred and fifty miles in 
twenty-eight days at one time, one stage of two hun- 
dred and sixty miles having been made in three days. 
But as he slowly drew up to the party in the cold 
evening light, it was seen that even Pearson was 
" done." Plis horse staggered and fell, and he him- 
self could not stand or speak for some time. After 
he had been revived he told his story, and a story of 
disaster and foreboding it was, sure enough. 

All the great tribes of the Columbia plains west of 
the Nez Perces had broken out, the Cayuses, Yakimas, 
Palouses, Walla Wallas, Umatillas, and Klickitats. 
They had swej)t the country clean of whites. The ride 
of Pearson from The Dalles to the point where he 
reached Governor Stevens is one of the most thrilling in 
the annals of the River. By riding all day and night, 
he reached a horse ranch on the Umatilla belonging 



220 The Columbia River 

to a noted half-breed Indian, William McKay, but 
he found the place deserted. Seeing a splendid horse 
in the bunch near by, he lassoed and saddled him. 
Though the horse was as wild as air, Pearson managed 
to mount and start on. Just then there swept into 
view a force of Indians who, instantly divining what 
Pearson was trying to do, gave chase. Up and down 
hill, through vale, and across the rim-rock, they fol- 
lowed, sending frequent bullets after him, and yelling 
like demons, " Whupsiah si-ah-poo, Whup-si-ah ! " 
("Kill the white man!") But the wild horse which 
the intrepid rider bestrode proved his salvation, for he 
gradually outran all his pursuers. Travelling through 
the Walla Walla at night Pearson reached the camp 
of friendly Nez Perce Red Wolf on the Alpowa the 
next day, having ridden two hundred miles from The 
Dalles without stopping except the brief time chang- 
ing horses. Snow and hunger now impeded his course. 
Part of the way he had to go on snowshoes with- 
out a horse. But with unflinching resolution he 
passed on, and so now here he was with his dismal 
tidings. 

The despatches warned Governor Stevens that 
Kamiakin with a thousand warriors m as in the Walla 
Walla Valley and that it would be impossible for 
him to get through by that route, and that he must 
therefore return to the East by the Missouri and 
come back to his Territory by the steamer route of 
Panama. That meant six months' delay. With char- 
acteristic boldness. Governor Stevens at once rejected 
the more cautious course and M^ent right back to Spo- 
kane by the Coeur d'Alene Pass, deep already with 
the winter snows, suffering intensely with cold and 



The Times of Tomahawk and Fire-Brand 221 

hunger, but avoiding by that route the Indians sent 
out to intercept him. With extraordinary address, 
he succeeded in turning the Spokane Indians to his 
side. The Nez Perces, thanks to Lawyer's fidehty, 
were still friendly, and with these two powerful tribes 
arrayed against the Yakimas, there was still hope of 
holding the Columbia Valley. 

After many adventures, Governor Stevens reached 
Olympia in safety. Governor Curry of Oregon had 
already called a force of volunteers into the field. 
The Oregon volunteers were divided into two divi- 
sions, one under Colonel J. W. Nesmith, which went 
into the Yakima country, and the other under Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel J. K. Kelley, which went to Walla 
Walla. The latter force fought the decisive battle of 
the campaign on the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th of De- 
cember, 1855. It was a series of engagements oc- 
curring in the heart of the Walla Walla Valley, a 
" running fight " culminating at what is now called 
Frenchtown, ten miles west of the present city of 
Walla Walla. The most important feature of it all 
was the death of the great Walla Walla chieftain, 
Peupeumoxmox. But though defeated and losing so 
important a chief, the Indians scattered across the 
rivers and were still unsubdued. 

In March, 1856, the sublime section of the Colum- 
bia lying between The Dalles and the Cascades be- 
came the scene of a series of atrocities the most 
distressing in the entire war. The Klickitats swooped 
down upon the defenceless settlers and massacred them 
with revolting cruelty. They vanished like a whirl- 
wind, but men whom the writer has known have 
related to him how the volunteers, returning to the 



222 The Columbia River 

scenes of desolation, found all houses destroyed and ' 
the carcasses of cattle thrown into the springs and wells. 
They found the naked bodies of the girls and women 
with stakes driven through, and those of men hor- 
ribly mutilated. In savage humour, the Indians had 
killed the hogs and left parts of human bodies in 
their mouths. One interesting fact connected with the 
campaign at the Cascades is that General Phil Sheri- 
dan fought his first battle there. The old Block House 
on the north side of the River, nearly opposite the 
present Cascade Locks, existed until a few years 
ago, and there was Sheridan's first battle. 

Meanwhile Governor Stevens had organised a 
force of Washington volunteers. As the year 1856 
progressed, it seemed more plain that the discord 
which developed between the regulars under command 
of General John E. Wool and the volunteers would 
result in fatal weakness. Nevertheless Governor Ste- 
vens and Governor Curry kept pressing the move- 
ments of their backwoods soldiers with unflagging 
energy. They were at last rewarded with a measure 
of success. For Colonel B. F. Shaw, commanding 
the Washington volunteers, learning that the hos- 
tiles were camped in force in the Grande Ronde 
Valley, made a rapid march from Walla Walla across 
the western spur of the Blue Mountains and struck 
the collected force of Indians a deadly blow, scatter- 
ing them in all directions and ending the war in that 
quarter. 

But the end had not yet come in Walla Walla. 
Governor Stevens determined to hold another great 
council at the site of the first. Leaving The Dalles 
on August 19th, he pressed on to Shaw's camp, two 




Fort Sheridan on the Grande Ronde, Built by 

Philip Sheridan in 1855. 

By Courtesy of Major Lee Moorehouse. 



The Times of Tomahawk and Fire-Brand 223 

miles above the present location of Walla Walla. On 
September 5th, Colonel E. J. Steptoe, with four com- 
panies of regulars, arrived at the same place and 
made camp on the site of the present fort. 

And now came on the second great Walla Walla 
council. The tribes were gathered as before, and 
were aligned as before. The division of Nez Per- 
ces under Lawyer stood firmly by Stevens and the 
treaty. The others did not. The most unfortun- 
ate feature of the entire matter was that Colonel 
Steptoe, acting under General Wool's instructions, 
thus far kept secret, refused to grant Stevens ade- 
quate support and subjected him to humiliations which 
galled the fiery Governor to the limit. In fact, had 
it not been for the vigilance of the faithful Nez 
Perces of Lawyer's band, Stevens and his force would 
surely have met the doom prepared for them at the 
first council. The debt of gratitude due Lawyer is 
incalculable. Spotted Eagle ought to be recorded, 
too, as of similar devotion and watchfulness. Gover- 
nor Stevens afterward declared that a speech by 
him in favour of the whites was equal in feeling, 
truth, and courage to any speech that he ever heard 
from any orator whatever. 

But in spite of oratory, zeal, and argument, 
nothing could overcome the influence of Kamiakin, 
Owhi, Quelchen, Five Crows, and others of the Ya- 
kimas and Cayuses. Nothing was gained. They 
stood just where they were a year before. The fatal 
results of divided counsels between regulars and volun- 
teers were apparent. 

The baffled Governor now started on his way down 
the Kiver, but not without another battle. For, as 



224 The Columbia River 

he was marching a short distance south of what is ' 
now Walla Walla city, the Indians burst upon his 
small force with the evident intention of ending all ' 
scores then and there. But Colonel Steptoe came to 
the rescue, and with united forces the Indians were 
repulsed. 

That was the last battle on the Walla Walla. 
Colonel Steptoe established a rude stockade fort on 
Mill Creek in what is now the heart of the present \ 
Walla Walla city, and went into winter quarters 
there in 1856-57. Governor Stevens returned to ' 
Olympia and launched forth a bitter arraignment 
against Wool. The latter, however, was in a position 
of vantage and issued a proclamation commanding all 
whites in the upper country to go down the River 
and leave the Cascade Mountains as the eastern limit 
of the white settlement. Thus ended for a time this 
unsatisfactory and distressing war. To all appear- 
ances Kamiakin and his adherents had accomplished 
all they wanted. 

But this was not the end. Gold had been dis- 
covered in Eastern Washington. Vast possibilities of 
cattle raising were evident on those endless bunch- 
grass hills. Although there was as yet little concep- 
tion of the future developments of the Inland Empire 
in agriculture and gardening, yet the keen-eyed im- 
migrants and volunteers had scanned the pleasant 
vales and abounding streams of the Walla Walla and 
the Umatilla and the Palouse, and had decided in 
their own minds that. Wool or no Wool, this land 
must be opened. In 1857 the Government decided 
on a change of policy and sent General N. S. Clarke 
to take Wool's place. General Clarke opened the 



The Times of Tomahawk and Fire-Brand 225 

gates, and the impatient army of land hunters and 
gold hunters began to move in. Meanwhile, Colonel 
Wright and Colonel Steptoe, though formerly they 
had closely followed Wool's policy, now began to 
experience a change of heart. Out of these condi- 
tions the third Indian war, in 1858, quickly succeeded 
the second, being indeed its inevitable sequence. 

Three campaigns marked this third war. The 
first was conducted by Colonel Steptoe against the 
Spokanes and Coeur d'Alenes, and ended in his humil- 
iating and disastrous defeat. The second was directed 
by Major Garnett against the Yakimas, resulting in 
their permanent overthrow. The third was conducted 
by Colonel Wright against the Spokanes and other 
northern tribes who had defeated Steptoe. This was 
the Waterloo of the Indians, and it ushered in the 
occupation and settlement of the upper Columbia 
country. 

The Steptoe expedition was the most ill-starred 
event in the whole history of the North-west, unless 
we except that of the destruction of the Tonquin. 
Colonel Wright was then in command of the new 
Fort Walla Walla, located in 1857 on the present 
ground. Perceiving his former error in giving the 
turbulent and treacherous natives undisputed sway, 
he ordered Colonel Steptoe to go with two hundred 
dragoons to the Spokane region and subject the rest- 
less tribes centring there. Steptoe's force was well 
equipped in every way except one. The pack train 
was heavily laden, and an inebriated quartermaster 
conceived the brilliant idea of lessening the burden by 
leaving out the larger part of the ammunition. Even 
aside from this fatal blunder. Colonel Steptoe seems 



226 The Columbia River 

to have had no adequate conception of the vigour 
and resources of the Indians. 

As before, the Nez Perces were the faithful friends 
of the whites. Timothy, a Nez Perce chief living on 
Snake River at the mouth of the Alpowa, put them 
across the wicked stream, then running high with the 
May freshet, and went on with them as guide. 

On May 16, 1858, the force reached a point near 
four lakes, probably the group of which Silver Lake 
and Medical Lake are the chief ones, a few miles 
west of Spokane. Here was gathered a formidable 
array, Spokanes, Pend Oreilles, Coeur d'Alenes, 
Okanogans, and Colvilles, the hosts of the upi^er 
country. Steptoe was soldier enough to perceive that 
it was time for caution, and he halted for a parley. 
Saltese, a brawny chief of the Coeur d'Alenes, de- 
clared to him that the Indians were ready to dispute 
his farther progress, but that if the white men would 
retire the Indians would not molest them. A friendly 
Nez Perce, seeing the duplicity of Saltese, struck 
his mouth, exclaiming, " You speak with a double 
tongue." 

The force turned back and that night all seemed 
well. But at nine o'clock the next morning, while 
the soldiers were descending a canon to Pine Creek, 
near the present site of Rosalia, a large force of In- 
dians burst upon them like a cyclone. As the battle 
began to wax hot, the terrible consequences of the 
error of lack of ammunition began to become mani- 
fest. Man after man had to cease firing. Captain 
O. H. P. Taylor and Lieutenant Gaston commanded 
the rear-guard. With extraordinary skill and de- 
votion they held the line intact and foiled the efforts 



The Times of Tomahawk and Fire-Brand 227 

of the savages to burst through. Meanwhile the 
whole force was moving as rapidly as consistent with 
formation on their way southward. Taylor and Gas- 
ton sent a messenger forward, begging Steptoe to 
halt the line and give them a chance to load. But 
the commander felt that the safety of the whole 
force depended on pressing on. Soon a fierce rush 
of Indians followed, and, when the surge had passed, 
the gallant rear-guard was buried under it. One 
notable figure in the death-grapple was De May, a 
Frenchman, trained in the Crimea and Algeria, and 
an expert fencer. For some time he used his gun 
barrel as a sword and swept the Indians down by 
dozens with his terrific sweeps. But at last he fell 
before numbers, and one of his surviving comrades 
relates that he heard him shouting his last words, 
" O, my God, my God, for a sabre! " 

But the lost rear-guard saved the rest. For they 
managed to hold back the swarm of foes until night- 
fall, when they reached a somewhat defensible posi- 
tion a few miles from the towering cone of what is now 
known as Steptoe Butte. There they spent part of 
a dark, rainy, and dismal night, anticipating a savage 
attack. But the Indians, sure of their prey, waited 
till morning. Surely the first light would have re- 
vealed a massacre equal to the Custer massacre of 
later date, had not the unexpected happened. And 
the unexpected was that old Timothy, the Nez Perce 
guide, knew a trail through a rough canon, the only 
possible exit without discovery. In the darkness of 
midnight the shattered command mounted and fol- 
lowed at a gallop the faithful Timothy on whose 
keen eyes and mind their salvation rested. The 



22 8 The Columbia River I 

wounded and a few footmen were dropped at inter- | 
vals along the trail. After an eighty-mile gallop ^ 
during the day and night following, the yellow flood > 
of Snake River suddenly broke before them between its | 
desolate banks. Saved! The unwearied Timothy ; 
threw out his own warriors as a screen against the j 
pursuing foe, and set his women to ferrying the 
soldiers across the turbulent stream. 

Thus the larger part of the command reached Fort 
Walla Walla alive. 

One of the most extraordinary individual experi- 
ences connected with the Steptoe retreat, was that of 
Snickster and Williams. Some of the survivors ques- 
tion the correctness of this, and others vouch for its 
accuracy. It perhaps should not be set down as proven 
history. Snickster and Williams were riding one 
horse, and could not keep up with the main body, j 
The Indians, therefore, overtook and seized them be- 
fore they reached the Snake River. In a rage because 
of having been balked of their prey, the Indians de- 
termined to have some amusement out of the un- 
fortunate pair, and told them to go into the river 
with their horse and try to swim across. Into the 
dangerous stream, two thousand feet wide, almost ice- 
cold, and with a powerful current, they went. As 
soon as they were out a score of yards, the Indians 
began their fun by making a target of them. The 
horse was almost immediately killed. Williams was 
struck and sank. Snickster's arm was broken by a 
ball, but diving under the dead horse, and keeping 
himself on the farther side till somewhat out of range, 
and then boldly striking across the current, which 
foamed with Indian bullets, he reached the south side 




Tullux Holiquilla, a Warm Springs Indian Chief, 

Famous in the Modoc War as a Scout for 

U. S. Troops. 

By Courtesy of Major Lee Moorehouse. 



The Times of Tomahawk and Fire-Brand 229 

of the river and was drawn out, almost dead, by 
some of Timothy's Nez Perce Indians. 

With the defeat of Steptoe, the Indians may well 
have felt that they were invincible. But their ex- 
ultation was short-lived. As already noted, Garnett 
crushed the Yakimas at one blow, and Wright a little 
later repeated Steptoe's march to Spokane, but did 
not repeat his retreat. For in the battle of Four 
Lakes on September 1st, and that of Spokane Plains 
on September 5th, Wright broke for ever the power 
and spirits of the northern Indians. 

The treaties were thus established at last by war. 
The reservations, embracing the finest parts of the 
Umatilla, Yakima, Clearwater, and Coeur d'Alene 
regions, were set apart, and to them after consider- 
able delay and difficulty the tribes were gathered. 

With the end of this third great Indian war and 
the public announcement by General Clarke that the 
country might now be considered open to settlement, 
immigration began to pour in, and on ranch and 
river, in mine and forest, the well-known labours of 
the American state-builders and home-builders became 
dis]3layed. The ever-new West was repeating itself. 

The Valley of the Columbia now rested from 
serious strife for a number of years. But in 1877, 
an echo of the war of 1855 suddenly startled the 
country, and provided an event to which lovers of 
the tragic and romantic in history have ever since 
turned with deep interest. This was the "Joseph 
War " in the Wallowa. Our readers will recall that 
the so-called Joseph band of Nez Perces opposed the 
Walla Walla Treaty at first, but finally acquiesced, 
with what they understood was the stii)ulation that 



230 The Columbia River 

they should possess the Wallowa country as their 
permanent home. The Joseph of that time was 
succeeded by his son, whose Indian name was Halla- 
kallakeen, " Eagle Wing." He was the finest speci- 
men of the native red man ever produced in the 
Columbia Valley. Of magnificent stature and pro- 
portions, with a rare dignity and nobility, which 
wider opportunities would have made remarkable, and 
with a career of mingled light and shade, pathos and 
tragedy, Hallakallakeen will go down into history 
with a record of passionate devotion from his followers 
and unstinted encomiums from most of his opponents. 

Josej)!! loved the Wallowa with a passionate af- 
fection, and made at first every effort to maintain 
amity with his white neighbours. But when the Gov- 
ernment violated what he had regarded its sacred 
pledge and permitted entrance upon the lands which 
he claimed, he refused to abide by the decision and 
led out his warriors to battle. The Nez Perces, 
though few in number, could fight face to face with 
white men, and could use white men's weapons and 
white men's tactics. At a desperate battle at White 
Bird Canon they routed the detachment in command 
of Colonel Perry. The result was to put arms, am- 
munition, and provisions in abundance into the hands 
of the Indians and hope into their hearts. 

General O. O. Howard, then commanding the 
department of the Columbia, now assumed command 
and began so vigorous a campaign against Joseph 
that the Indian chief plainly saw that with all his 
activity he could not avoid being seized in the closing 
arms of Howard's command. The interesting details 
of the marches, countermarches, desperate encounters, 




Hallakallakeen (Eagle Wing) or Joseph, the 
Nez Perce Chief. 
By T. W. Tolman. 



The Times of Tomahawk and Fire-Brand 231 

sometimes favourable to white man and sometimes to 
red, are to be found in General Howard's own book. 
At last, with marvellous skill and good fortune, Joseph 
eluded capture and adopted the desperate resolution 
of crossing the Bitter Root Mountains by the Lolo 
trail, descending the Missouri, and ultimately reach- 
ing the Canadian line beyond the land of the Sioux. 
Encumbered as he was with his women, children, and 
entire movable possessions, obliged to forage and 
hunt on the way, and avoiding pursuers in rear as 
well as forces coming to meet him in front, fighting 
frequent and some of the time successful battles, — 
the Nez Perce chieftain exhibited qualities of leader- 
ship and resources of mind and body which offer 
materials for a historical romance equal to De Quincey's 
Flight of the Kalmuck Tartars. 

Howard's tireless pursuit in the rear and the ac- 
tive and intelligent co-oj^eration of Gibbon and Miles, 
who ascended the Missouri to meet the fleeing Nez 
Perces, resulted at last in their capture at Bear Paw 
Mountain on the JVIilk River in Montana. 

General Howard says that the campaign from the 
beginning of the Indian pursuit across the Lolo trail 
until the embarkation on the Missouri for the home- 
ward journey, including all stoppages and halts, 
extended from July 27th to October 10th, during 
which time his command marched one thousand three 
hundred and twenty-one miles. He says that Joseph, 
encumbered with women, children, and possessions, 
traversed even greater distances, " for he had to make 
many a loop in his skein, many a deviation into a 
tangled thicket, to avoid or deceive his enemy." How- 
ard pays the highest tribute to his Indian foe and 



232 The Columbia River 

declares that some of his operations are not often 
equalled in warfare. 

Joseph's subsequent career was a melancholy one. 
Transported with his band to Oklahoma, the wild 
eagle of the Wallowa so pined away on the flat 
prairie and begged so piteously to be allowed to re- 
turn to the waters of the Columbia, that his request 
was granted. But so intense was the feeling among 
the people who had suffered from their dangerous 
enemy that this poor fragment of the Nez Perces was 
placed on the Colville Reservation in Northern Wash- 
ington. There the restless heart of the Nez Perce 
Bonaparte was eaten out by bitter yearnings for his 
loved Wallowa. 

He had an occasional proud and interesting hour. 
At the time of General Grant's obsequies at New 
York, Joseph was in Washington to see the " Great 
Father " about his reservation. General Miles, who 
greatly admired the hero of the Lolo trail, asked him 
to ride with himself at the head of the funeral pro- 
cession. Mounted on a magnificent charger, Joseph 
rode solemnly through the streets of the metropolis 
by the side of the conqueror of Bear Paw Mountain, 
and there were not wanting those who said that the 
Indian was the finer horseman and the finer-looking 
man. 

But Joseph died at his camp on the Nespilem 
without ever seeing Wallowa. His last request was 
that he be buried there. He remained an Indian to 
the last, not ordinarily living in a house or wearing 
civilised costume or even speaking English, though 
perfectly able to do so. His life might have been 
happier had he never been known to fame. 




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The Times of Tomahawk and Fire-Brand 233 

In case of Joseph as of civilized heroes of similar 
type there is by no means an unanimity of opinion. 
A considerable section of old-timers maintain that the 
ability manifested by the Nez Perces should be credited 
to the chiefs White Bird and Looking Glass. Mr. Lew 
Wilmot of Idaho, well-known to old-timers in the 
North-west, is a special exponent of this view. He 
adds, however, that the early successes of the Indians 
were mainly due to gross incompetence by the com- 
manders of both the U. S. Regulars and the Volunteers. 
The next j^ear after the Joseph War, or in 1878, 
occurred the Bannock War, the scene of which was 
mainly Umatilla County in Oregon and other parts 
adjoining the River. Though at first, as has hap- 
pened so many times, the Indians met with successes, 
the end was their inevitable defeat. 

With the close of the Bannock War it may be 
said that Indian warfare practically ended. The war- 
whoop ceased to be heard and the tomahawk was 
brandished no more along the Columbia. 



CHAPTER X 

When the Fire-Canoes Took the Place of the Log- 
Canoes 

Variety of Craft that have Navigated the Columbia — The Beaver, 
Carolina, Coluvihia, and Lot Whitcomb — Beginning of Steam- 
boating above the Cascades — Steamboats above The Dalles — 
Rival Companies on the River — The Oregon Steam Navigation 
Company — Great Business Developments of the Decade of the 
Sixties — Specimen Shipments in 1862 — The Steamboat Ride from 
Portland to Lewiston — Some of the Steamboat Men of the Period 
— Story of W. H. Gray and his Sailboat on the Snake River — 
Descending The Dalles — Captain Coe's Account of the First 
Steamboat Ride on the Upper Columbia and the Snake — Navi- 
gation above Colville and on the Lakes — The Locks and Pros- 
pects of Future Navigation — Remarkable Trips on the River — 
Some Steamboats of the Present. 

WE have learned that our River has been navi- 
gated by boats of almost every description. 
At one time it was the hollowed cedar-log 
canoes of the aborgines. Again, the bateaux of the 
trappers were the chief craft to cut the blue lakes 
and the white rapids. At yet other times it was the 
flat-boats of the immigrants. Sailing ships of every 
sort — frigates, galleons, caravels, men-of-war, full- 
rigged ships, barks, brigs, schooners, and sloops — 
crowded early to the silver gate of the River. 

In due process of time the " Fire-canoes," as the 
natives called steamers, let loose their trails of smoke 
amid the tops of the " continuous woods." The 

234 









L. 



Steamer Beaver, the First Steamer on the Pacific, 1836. 



" Fire-Canoes " Follow Log-Canoes 235 

Beaver, a small steamship belonging to the Hudson's 
Bay Company and sent from England, entered the 
River in 1836, the first steamer to ply these waters. 
She afterwards plied the waters of Puget sound and 
the Gulf of Georgia for a number of years. In 1850 
the first American steamship, the Carolina^ crossed the 
Bar. In the same year a little double-ender, called 
the Columbia^ began running between Portland and 
Astoria. 

The first river steamer of any size to ply upon the 
Willamette and Columbia was the JLot Whitcomh. 
This steamer was built by Whitcomb and Jennings. 
J. C. Ainsworth was the first captain, and Jacob 
Kamm was the first engineer. Both these men be- 
came leaders in every species of steamboating enter- 
prise. In 1851 Dan Bradford and B. B. Bishop 
inaugurated a movement to connect the up-river 
region with the lower river by getting a small iron 
propeller called the Jason P. Flint from the East 
and putting her together at the Cascades, whence she 
made the run to Portland. The Flint has been named 
as first to run above the Cascades, but the author has 
the authority of JNIr. Bishop for stating that the first 
steamer to run above the Cascades was the Eagle. 
That steamer was brought in sections by Allen 
McKinley to the upper Cascades in 1853, there put 
together, and set to plying on the part of the river 
between the Cascades and The Dalles. In 1854, the 
Mary was built and launched above the Cascades, 
the next year the Wasco followed, and in 1856 the 
Hassalo began to toot her jubilant horn at the pre- 
cipices of the mid-Columbia. In 1859 R. R. Thomp- 
son and Lawrence Coe built the Colonel Wright, the 



236 The Columbia River 

first steamer on the upper section of the River. In 
the same year the same men built at the upper Cas- 
cades a steamer called the Venture. This . craft met 
with a curious catastrophe. For on her very first trip 
she swung too far into the channel and was carried over 
the upper Cascades, at the point where the Cascade 
Locks are now located. She was subsequently raised, 
rebuilt, and rechristened the Umatilla. 

This part of the period of steamboat building was 
cotemporary with the Indian wars of 1855 and 1856. 
The steamers, Wasco, Mary, and Eagle were of much 
service in rescuing victims of the murderous assault 
on the Cascades by the Klickitats. 

While the enterprising steamboat builders were thus 
making their way up-river in the very teeth of In- 
dian warfare, steamboats were in course of construc- 
tion on the Willamette. The Jennie Clark in 1854 
and the Carrie Ladd in 1858 were built for the firm of 
Abernethy, Clark & Company. These both, the latter 
especially, were really elegant steamers for the time. 

The close of the Indian wars in 1859 saw a quite 
well-organised steamer service between Portland and 
The Dalles, and the great rush into the upper coun- 
try was just beginning. The Seiiorita, the Belle, and 
the Multnomah, under the management of Benjamin 
Stark, were on the run from Portland to the Cas*- 
cades. A rival steamer, the Mountain Buck, owned 
by Ruckle and Olmstead, was on the same route. 
These steamers connected with boats on the Cascades- 
Dalles section by means of portages five miles long 
around the rapids. There was a portage on each 
side of the River. That on the north side was op- 
erated by Bradford & Company, and their steamers 



"Fire-Canoes" Follow Log-Canoes 237 

were the Hassalo and the Mary. Ruckle and Olm- 
stead owned the portage on the south side of the 
River, and their steamer was the Wasco. Sharp com- 
petition arose between the Bradford and Stark in- 
terests on one side and Ruckle and Olmstead on the 
other. The Stark Company was known as the Colum- 
bia River Navigation Company, and the rival was the 
Oregon Transportation Company. J. C. Ainsworth 
now joined the Stark party with the Carrie Ladd. 
So efficient did this reinforcement prove to be that 
the Transportation Company proposed to them a 
combination. This was effected in April, 1859, and 
the new organisation became known as the Union 
Transportation Company. This was soon found to 
be too loose a consolidation to accomplish the desired 
ends, and the parties interested set about a new com- 
bination to embrace all the steamboat men from Celilo 
to Astoria. The result was the formation of the 
Oregon Steam Navigation Company, which came into 
legal existence on December 20, 1860. Its stock in 
steamboats, sailboats, wharf-boats, and miscellaneous 
property was stated at $172,500. 

Such was the genesis of the " O. S. N. Co." In 
a valuable article by Irene Lincoln Poppleton in the 
Oregon Historical Quarterly for September, 1908, to 
which we here make acknowledgments, it is said that 
no assessment was ever levied on the stock of this 
company, but that from the proceeds of the business 
the management expended in gold nearly three mil- 
lion dollars in developing their property, besides pay- 
ing; to the stockholders in dividends over two million 
and a half dollars. Never perhaps was there such a 
record of money-making on such a capitalisation. 



238 The Columbia River 

The source of the tremendous activity of the Oregon \ 
Steam Navigation Company was the rush into Idaho, ' 
Montana, and Eastern Oregon and Washington by 
the miners, cowboys, speculators, and adventurers of 
the early sixties. The up-river country, as described 
more at length in another chapter, wakened suddenly 
from the lethargy of centuries, and the wilderness 
teemed with life. That was the great steamboat age. 
Money flowed in streams. Fortunes were made and 
lost in a day. 

^ When first organised in 1860, the Oregon Steam 
Navigation Company had a nondescript lot of steam- 
ers, mainly small and weak. The two portages, one 
of five miles around the Cascades and the other of 
fourteen miles from The Dalles to Celilo Falls, 
were unequal to their task. The portages at the 
Cascades on both sides of the River were made by 
very inadequate wooden tramways. That at The 
Dalles was made by teams. Such quantities of freight 
were discharged from the steamers that sometimes 
the whole portage was lined with freight from end 
to end. The portages were not acquired by the 
company with the steamboat property, and as a re- 
sult the portage owners reaped the larger share of 
the profits. During high water the portage on the 
Oregon side at the Cascades had a monopoly of the 
business, and it took one-half the freight income 
from Portland to The Dalles. This was holding the 
whip-hand with a vengeance, and the vigorous di- 
rectors of the steamboat company could not endure 
it. Accordingly, they absorbed the rights of the 
portage owners, built a railroad from Celilo to The 
Dalles on the Oregon side, and one around the Cas- 





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Old Portage Railroad at Cascades in i860. 



** Fire-Canoes " Follow Log-Canoes 239 

cades on the Washington side. The comj)any was 
reorganised under the laws of Oregon in October, 
1862, with a declared capitalisation of two million 
dollars. 

Business on the River in 1863 was something 
enormous. Hardly ever did a steamer make a trip 
with less than two hundred passengers. Freight was 
offered in such quantities at Portland that trucks had 
to stand in line for blocks, waiting to deliver and re- 
ceive their loads. New boats were built of a much 
better class. Two rival companies, the Independent 
Line and the People's Transportation Line, made a 
vigorous struggle to secure a share of the business, 
but they were eventually overpowered. Some con- 
ception of the amount of business may be gained 
from the fact that the steamers transported pas- 
sengers to an amount of fares running from $1000 to 
$6000 a trip. On April 29, 1862, the Tenino, leav- 
ing Celilo for the Lewiston trip, had a passenger load 
amounting to $10,945, and a few trips later reported 
receipts of $18,000, for freight, passengers, meals, and 
berths. The steamships sailing from Portland to 
San Francisco showed equally remarkable records. 
On June 25, 1861, the Sierra Nevada conveyed a 
treasure shipment of $228,000; July 14th, $110,000; 
August 24th, $195,558; December 5th, $750,000. 
The number of passengers carried on The Dalles- 
Lewiston route in 1864 was 36,000 and the tons of 
freight were 21,834. 

It was a magnificent steamboat ride in those days 
from Portland to Lewiston. The fare was sixty dol- 
lars; meals and berths, one dollar each. A traveller 
would leave Portland at five a.m. on, perhaps, the 



240 The Columbia River 

Wilson G. Hunt, reach the Cascades sixty-five miles 
distant at eleven a.m.^ proceed by rail five miles to 
the upper Cascades, there transfer to the Oneonta 
or Idaho for The Dalles, passing in that run from 
the humid, low-lying, heavily timbered West-of-the- 
mountains, to the dry, breezy, hilly East-of-the- 
mountains. Reaching The Dalles, fifty miles farther 
east, he would be conveyed by another portage 
railroad, fourteen miles more, to Celilo. There the 
TeninOj, Yakima, Nez Pet'ce Chief, or Owyhee was 
waiting. With the earliest light of the morning 
the steamer would head right into the impetuous cur- 
rent of the River, bound for Lewiston, two hundred 
and eighty miles farther yet, taking two days, some- 
times three, though only one to return. Those steamers 
were mainly of the light-draught, stern-wheel struc- 
ture, which still characterises the Columbia River 
boats. They were swift and roomy and well adapted 
to the turbulent waters of the upper River. 

The captains, pilots, and pursers of that period 
were as fine a set of men as ever turned a wheel. 
Bold, bluff, genial, hearty, and obliging they were, 
even though given to occasional outbursts of exple- 
tives and possessing voluminous repertoires of " cuss- 
words " such as would startle the effete East. Any 
old Oregonian who may chance to cast his eyes upon 
these pages will recall, as with the pangs of child- 
hood homesickness, the forms and features of steam- 
boat men of that day; the polite j'^et determined 
Ainsworth, the brusque and rotund Reed, the bluff 
and hearty Knaggs, the frolicsome and never dis- 
concerted Ingalls, the dark, powerful, and nonchalant 
Coe, the patriarchal beard of Stump, the loquacious 



** Fire-Canoes " Follow Log-Canoes 241 

" Commodore " Wolf, who used to point out to as- 
tonished tourists the " diabolical strata " on the banks 
of the River, the massive and good-natured Strang, 
the genial and elegant O'Neil, the suave and witty 
Snow, the tall and handsome Sampson, the rich Scotch 
brogue of McNulty, and dozens of others, whose 
combined adventures would fill a volume. One of 
the most experienced pilots of the upper River was 
Captain **Eph'* Baughman, who ran for more than fifty 
years on the Snake and Columbia rivers, and who at 
the date of this publication (1917) is still living. W. 
H. Gray, who came to Waiilatpu with Whitman as 
secular agent of the mission, became a river man of 
much skill. He gave four sons, John, William, Al- 
fred, and James, to the service of the River, all four 
of them being skilled captains. A story narrated to 
the author by Captain William Gray, now of Pasco, 
Washington, well illustrates the character of the old 
Columbia River navigators. W. H. Gray was the 
first man to run a sailboat of much size with regular 
freight up Snake River. That was in 1860 before 
any steamers were running on that stream. Mr. 
Gray built his boat, a fifty-ton sloop, on Oosyoos 
Lake on the Okanogan River. In it he descended 
that river to its entrance into the Columbia. Thence 
he descended the Columbia, running down the Entiat, 
Rock Island, Cabinet, and Priest Rapids, no mean 
undertaking of itself. Reaching the mouth of the 
Snake, he took on a load of freight and started up 
the swift stream. At Five-mile Rapids he found that 
his sail was insufficient to carry the sloop up. ]Men 
had said that it was impossible. His crew all pro- 
phesied disaster. The stubborn captain merely de- 
16 



242 The Columbia River 

clared, " There is no such word as fail in my 
dictionary." He directed his son and another of 
the crew to take the small boat, load her with a long 
coil of rope, make their way up the stream until they 
got above the rapid, there to land on an islet of rock, 
fasten the rope to that rock, then pay it out till it 
was swept down the rapid. They were then to de- 
scend the rapid in the small boat. " Very likely you 
may be upset," added the skipper encouragingly, 
" but if you are, you know how to swim." They 
were upset, sure enough, but they did know how to 
swim. They righted their boat, picked up the end of 
the floating rope, and reached the sloop with it. The 
rope was attached to the capstan, and the sloop was 
wound up by it above the swiftest part of the rapid 
to a point where the sail was sufficient to carry, and 
on they went rejoicing. Any account of steamboat- 
ing on the Columbia would be incomplete without 
reference to Captain James Troup, who was born on 
the Columbia, and almost from early boyhood ran 
steamers upon it and its tributaries. He made a 
specialty of running steamers down the Dalles and 
the Cascades, an undertaking sometimes rendered 
necessary by the fact that more boats were built in 
proportion to demand on the upper than the lower 
River. These were taken down the Dalles, and 
sometimes down the Cascades. Once down, they 
could not return. The first steamer to run down the 
Tumwater Falls was the Okanogan^ on May 22, 
1866, piloted by Captain T. J. Stump. 

The author enjoyed the great privilege of de- 
scending the Dalles in the D. S. Baker in the year 
1888, Captain Troup being in command. At that 



** Fire-Canoes " Follow Log-Canoes 243 

strange point in the River, the whole vast volume is 
compressed into a channel but one hundred and sixty 
feet wide at Ioav water and much deeper than wide. 
Like a huge mill-race the current continues nearly 
straight for tMO miles, when it is hurled with fright- 
ful force against a massive bluff. Deflected from 
the bluff, it turns at a sharp angle to be split in 
sunder by a low reef of rock. When the Baker was 
drawn into the suck of the current at the head of the 
" chute " she swept down the channel, which was al- 
most black, with streaks of foam, to the bluff, two 
miles in four minutes. There feeling the tremendous 
refluent wave, she went careening over and over toward 
the sunken reef. The skilled captain had her per- 
fectly in hand, and precisely at the right moment, 
rang the signal bell, " Ahead, full speed," and ahead 
she went, just barely scratching her side on the 
rock. Thus close was it necessary to calculate dis- 
tance. If the steamer had struck the tooth-like point 
of the reef broadside on, she would have been broken 
in two and carried in fragments on either side. Hav- 
ing passed this danger point, she glided into the 
beautiful calm bay below and the feat was accom- 
plished. Captain J. C. Ainsworth and Captain 
James Troup were the two captains above all others 
to whom the company entrusted the critical task of 
running steamers over the rapids. 

In the Overland Monthly of June, 1886, there is 
a valuable account by Captain Lawrence Coe of the 
maiden journey of the Colonel Wright from Celilo 
up what they then termed the upper Columbia. 

This first journey on that section of the River was 
made in April, 1859. The pilot was Captain Lew 



244 The Columbia River 

White. The highest point reached was Wallula, the 
site of the old Hudson's Bay fort. The current was 
a powerful one to withstand, no soundings had ever 
been made, and no boats except canoes, bateaux, 
flatboats, and a few small sailboats, had ever made 
the trip. No one had any conception of the location 
of a channel adapted to a steamboat. No difficulty 
was experienced, however, except at the Umatilla 
Kapids. This is a most singular obstruction. Three 
separate reefs, at intervals of half a mile, extend 
right across the River. There are narrow breaks in 
these reefs, but not in line with each other. Through 
them the water pours with tremendous velocity, and 
on account of their irregular locations a steamer 
must zigzag across the River at imminent risk of be- 
ing borne broadside on to the reef. The passage of 
the Umatilla Rapids is not difficult at high water, 
for then the steamer glides over the rocks in a 
straight course. 

In the August Overland of the same year. Cap- 
tain Coe narrates the first steamboat trip up Snake 
River. This was in June, 1860, just at the time of 
the beginning of the gold excitement. The Colonel 
Wright was loaded with picks, rockers, and other min- 
ing implements, as well as provisions and passengers. 
Most of the freight and passengers were put off at 
Wallula, to go thence overland. Part continued on 
to test the experiment of making M^ay against the 
wicked-looking current of Snake River. After three 
days and a half from the starting point a few miles 
above Celilo, the Colonel Wright halted at a place 
which was called Slaterville, thirty-seven miles up the 
Clearwater from its junction with the Snake. There 



Fire-Canoes " Follow Loc^-Canoes 245 



i3 



the remainder of the cargo was discharged, to be 
hauled in waggons to the Oro Fino mines. The 
steamer Okanogan followed the Colonel Wright 
within a few weeks, and navigation on the Snake 
may be said to have fairly begun. During that same 
time the city of Lewiston, named in honour of Meri- 
wether Lewis, the explorer, was founded at the 
junction of the Snake and Clearwater rivers. 

While parts of the Columbia and it chief tributary, 
the Snake, w^ere thus opened to navigation by 1860, 
no " fire-canoe " had yet appeared on that magnifi- 
cent stretch of navigable water from Colville into the 
Arrow Lakes. From contemporary files of the Daily 
Mountaineer of The Dalles, we learn that Captain 
Lew White launched the Forty-nine in November, 
1865, at Colville. In December the Forty-nine as- 
cended the Columbia one hundred and sixty miles, 
nearly to the head of lower Arrow Lake, whence, 
meeting floating ice, she returned. From the Moun- 
taineer we learn also that in the early months of 
1866 a steamer was constructed at the mouth of 
Boise River for navigation of the far upper Snake. 
At the same time also the steamer 3Iary Moody was 
constructed by Z. F. Moody, on Pend Oreille Lake, 
the first steamer on any of the lakes except the 
Arrow Lakes of the Columbia. 

With the close of the decade of the sixties, it may 
be said that the Columbia and its tributaries had 
fairly entered upon the steamboat era. While many 
steamers were added within the succeeding years, the 
steamboat business was never so active on the upper 
River as during that early age. After the building 
of the railroads along the River and into interior 



246 The Columbia River 

valleys and eastward, it became apparent that the 
heavy handicap of rehandling freight at two port- 
ages would forbid the steamers from competing with 
the railroads. In 1879 the Oregon Steam Naviga- 
tion Company sold out to the Villard interests for 
$5,000,000, and the Oregon Kailroad and Navigation 
Company was the result. 

Since that time there have been few steamboats on 
that part of the River above The Dalles. The section 
between The Dalles and the Cascades was joined to 
the tide-water section by the opening of the Govern- 
ment locks at the Cascades in 1896, and since that 
time many of the finest steamers on the River do an 
immense tourist business between The Dalles and 
Portland. In May, 1915, one of the greatest events in 
the history of navigation on the River occurred. This 
was the completion of the Dalles— Celilo Canal. This 
great work, without which the Cascade Canal was quite 
limited in its operation, had been in contemplation for 
half a century, and for twenty years prior to its comple- 
tion had been before the Rivers and Harbors Commit- 
tees of Congress. Some actual work had been done in 
rather a desultory fashion, but beginning in 1911, ade- 
quate appropriations, with skilful engineering by the 
United States Engineers in Portland, made possible 
energetic and continuous work. 

The Celilo canal is eight and one-half miles in length 
and commands a total descent of eighty-one feet. 
This is overcome by five locks, though almost the entire 
descent is accomplished by a tandem lock at the lower 
end. By this improvement the Columbia can be navi- 
gated the year round from the Ocean to Priest Rapids, 
about four hundred and fifteen miles. The Snake is 




Christening the Celilo Canal. 
Young Ladies from all Snake, Willamette, and Columbia River 

Communities. 
Photo bv Marshall X. Dana. 



"Fire-Canoes" Follow Log-Canoes 247 

navigable for light draft boats about eight months in 
the year nearly two hundred miles from its mouth or 
about five hundred and fifty miles from the ocean. 
The next great improvements in view on the Columbia 
are canal and locks at three points: Priest Rapids, Rock 
Island Rapids, and Kettle Falls, together with some 
minor improvement of channels at other points, by 
which series of operations there will be continuous navi- 
gation from the Ocean to Revelstoke, B. C, a thousand 
miles. 

The corresponding improvement on the Snake will 
be its canalization between the mouth and the junction 
with the Salmon River, by which there may be con- 
tinuous, all-year navigation from the mouth for two 
hundred and fifty miles. 

With these improvements, there will come on a new 
era of water-way navigation on the River. With it is 
coming an era of hard surface roads and automobile 
trafiic. The steamer, the trolley-car, and the highway 
will set the whole Columbia Basin next door to tide- 
water. 

Generally speaking, the rivers of the Pacific slope 
descend from high altitudes in comparatively short 
distances, and are necessarily swift. Hence we can 
expect no such vast extent of navigable water on them 
as the Mississippi and its affluents offer. Aside from 
the Columbia itself, the main streams east of the Cas- 
cade Mountains offering steamboat transportation are 
the Snake, Okanogan, and Kootenai, together with 
Lakes Pend Oreille, Chelan, Kaniksu, Coeur d'Alene, 
Flathead, Okanogan, Kootenai, Arrow, Christina, and 
Slocan. On the west side are the Willamette, Cowlitz, 
and Lewis rivers. 



248 The Columbia River 

It would fill a volume to narrate even a tithe of the 
thrilling tales of daring and tragedy which gather 
around the subject of boating in all its forms on the 
Columbia. 

One of the most remarkable steamboat journeys 
was that elsewhere described in this work, under com- 
mand of Captain F. P. Armstrong, of the North 
Star, from Jennings, Montana, on the Kootenai to 
Canal Flats and thence through the canal to Lake 
Columbia. With that should be coupled as equally 
daring and more difficult, the trip down Snake River, 
from the Seven Devils to Lewiston, in a steamer 
piloted by Captain W. P. Gray. 

Undoubtedly the most remarkable journey in any 
other sort of craft than a steamboat was that under- 
taken by a party of eighteen miners in 1865. They 
built a large sailing boat at Colville and in her ran 
up the entire course of the River, never having their 
boat entirely out of water, though our informant 
says that they must have had her on skids part of 
the way. They reached the very head of the Colum- 
bia, over seven hundred miles above their starting 
point, hauled their boat across Canal Flats, launched 
her again on the Kootenai, and so descended that 
furious stream to Fort Steele on Wild Horse Creek. 
The full history of that journey would be deserving 
of a place in any record of daring exploration. 

In concluding this chapter, it may be said that 
there are now upon the lower Columbia some of the 
swiftest and most beautiful " fire-canoes " in the 
world. These ply on the two great scenic routes, 
one from Portland to Astoria, and the other from 
Portland to The Dalles. Regular steamers now run 
between Portland, Pasco, Kennewick, and Lewiston, 
and points between. 



CHAPTER XI 

Era of the Miner, the Cowboy, the Farmer, the 
Boomer, and the Railroad Builder 

Early Gold-hunters — Gold in California — Effects of that Discovery 
on the Columbia River Country — Growth of Towns on the Colum- 
bia — Discovery of Gold in the Colville Country — Gold on the 
Clearwater — Stampede to the Idaho Mines — Cowboys Rush in 
with the Miners — Sudden Development of Industries at Walla 
Walla, Lewiston, and Other Towns — Profits and Fare in the 
Mines in 1861 — The Hard Winter — Development of the Farming 
Industry — The Boomers — The Hard Times — The Railroad Age 
• — Beginning of Railroading in the Willamette Valley — Ben 
Holladay — Transcontinental Railways — Henry Villard — His Great 
Building and his Downfall — The Present Railroads on the River 
— Dr, D. S. Baker and the Pioneer Railroad on the Upper River. 

THE age of gold in the Columbia pressed hard 
upon that of the trappers. But it dawned 
first far south. 
The Spaniards had sought the precious metals 
with boundless energy. Richly had the treasures of 
the JNIontezumas and the Incas rewarded their reck- 
less cupidity. But as they moved northward they 
met with nothing but disappointment. The El Do- 
rados of their ardent fancy had vanished as they 
turned toward Oregon and California. 

In 1848 the guns of Stockton and Fremont thun- 
dered the salvos of American occupation over the 
Sierras. Just as the sovereignty of Uncle Sam was 

249 



250 The Columbia River 

acknowledged, the long-sought discovery of gold 
startled the world. 

In 1838 a gay, mercurial Switzer, Captain Sutter, 
had made his way with a band of trappers across the 
plains to Oregon, and thence had gone to California. 
A dashing adventurer, without money, but with 
boundless sang-froid and honhommie^ Sutter had mar- 
vellously interested all whom he met and in some in- 
explicable manner had got money and credit sufficient 
to build a fort and start an immense ranch on the 
Sacramento, almost on the site of the present capital 
of the Golden State. " Sutter's fort " became one 
of the most notable places in Californiao In 1844 
James W. Marshall went to the Columbia, but after 
only a year's stay made his way to California. In 
1847 he entered into partnership with Sutter in a 
sawmill enterprise at Coloma on the south fork of the 
American River. There, while at work in the mill- 
race on the 19th of January, 1848, Marshall discovered 
shining particles. Gold! 

The discovery was made, and soon the secret was 
out. And then — ! There never was anything quite 
comparable to what followed. The first and greatest 
of the great stampedes for gold took place. 

When the tidings reached Oregon it was as though 
a prairie fire were running over the country. Men 
went fairly mad. Throngs, hardly stopping to take 
their ploughs from the furrow, mounted their horses, 
galloped off up the Willamette, through the lonely 
valleys of the Umpqua and the Rogue River, over 
the Siskiyou, and down the Sacramento, where a 
fortune could be had for the digging. 

All the stress and strain of American life and 



Era of the Miner 251 

history reached the utmost intensity in the fever strife 
for gold on the Sacramento. The Willamette and 
Columbia were almost equally stirred. During the 
first two years of the gold excitement homes on the 
Columbia were well-nigh deserted. Then the Ore- 
gonians began to drift back again. Some came with 
gold-bricks in their pockets and sacks of gold-dust in 
their packs. Some came broken in health and spirits, 
sick with disappointment. Some did not come at 
all, and their bones found unmarked graves in the 
pestilential ditches of the Sacramento. 

But |;he shrewder Oregonians perceived that they 
had better than a gold mine in the trade with Cali- 
fornia. Grain, fruit, eggs, lumber, — these were in 
such demand that frequently twenty ships at a time 
were moored by the dense forests of the lower Willa- 
mette waiting for cargoes. Gold-dust was the uni- 
versal medium, and it seemed to be cheaper than 
anything else. Four bushels of Oregon apples 
brought five hundred dollars in gold-dust in San 
Francisco. Tons of eggs were sold for a dollar apiece 
in the gold mines. 

Portland, the lonely little village on the Willa- 
mette, with just enough of a foothold by the edge of 
the forest to keep from rolling into the River, sprang 
at a bound into the rank of a cit}'-. The huge firs 
were dug out, and wharves went in. The face of 
nature, even, as well as that of industry and politics, 
was transformed by that gold-dust in JNIarshall's 
mill-race on the Sacramento. 

But, most of all, the disposition of the people was 
changed. The serene, idyllic, pastoral age passed, and 
the fierce lust for wealth, the boundless imagination, 



252 The Columbia River 

the fever in the veins, came on. Why should there 
not be gold as well by the Columbia as by the 
Sacramento! The men who had come down the 
Columbia in search for homes and grass-land for 
cattle, now began to retrace their steps and turn again 
up the River in search of the precious metals. Nor 
was it long before discovery of gold in the region 
tributary to Colville was made known. The first 
discovery was at the mouth of the Pend Oreille River. 
A regular stampede ensued. Other discoveries on a 
greater scale were soon to follow. During the early 
days of the gold excitement of CaHfornia, a Nez 
Perce Indian had wandered to the Sacramento. He 
made acquaintance with a group of miners, who be- 
came impressed with his general force and dignity. 
Among these miners was E. D. Pearce, and to him 
the Indian gave a vivid account of his home in the 
wilds of what is now Idaho. He told also a tale of 
how he with two companions were once in the high 
mountains, when they beheld in the night a light of 
dazzling brilliance, with the appearance of a refulgent 
star. The Indians looked at this with awe as the eye 
of the Great Spirit. But in the morning they sum- 
moned courage sufficient to investigate, and found a 
glittering ball that looked like glass. It was so em- 
bedded in the rock that they could not dislodge it. 
It was clear to them that this was some great " toma- 
nowas." On hearing this fantastic story, the mind of 
Pearce was kindled \dth the idea that perhaps the 
Indians had found an immense diamond. He de- 
termined to seek it. After several years he made his 
way up the Columbia and reached Walla Walla. 
From that point he ranged the mountains of Idaho, 




Portland, Oregon, in 1851. 
From an Old Print. 



Era of the Miner 253 

but for a long time met no success. With a com- 
pany of seven men, he entered upon an elaborate 
search, which finally so much aroused the suspicion 
of the Indians that they ordered him from the coun- 
try. Nothing daunted, however, he induced a Nez 
Perce w^oman to guide the party from the Palouse 
to the Lolo trail, from which they reached an un- 
frequented valley on the north fork of the Clear- 
water. There one of the party, W. F. Bassett, tried 
washing a pan of dirt, with the result that he got a 
" colour." This was the first discovery of gold in 
Idaho, and the spot was where Oro Fino afterwards 
stood. 

Fall was coming on, and after digging out a small 
amount of dust, the party deemed it wise to return to 
the settlements for a more thorough outfitting. Ac- 
cordingl}^ they went to Walla Walla and located 
with J. C. Smith, to whom they imparted their 
secret. So impressed was Mr. Smith with the tidings 
that he organised a party of fifteen, with whom he re- 
turned just at the opening of the winter of that same 
year, 1860. Soon shut in by deep snows in inacces- 
sible mountains, the little company built five rude 
huts, and in the intervals of the storms they dug for 
gold along the streams, meeting with such success 
that in INIarch ]Mr. Smith made his way to Walla 
Walla with $800 in gold-dust. The dust was sent 
to Portland. Now ensued another gold excitement 
and stampede almost equal to that of '49 in California. 

As the miners rushed into Idaho, every other 
species of industry rushed up the River with them. 
The cowboy came side by side with the miner. In 
fact, already following close on the heels of the Indian 



2 54 The Columbia River 

war, had come an inrush of cattle, horses, and sheep. 
During the last years of the decade of the fifties, 
stoclonen had driven from the Willamette Valley 
thousands of head of stock to the rich pasture lands 
of the Walla Walla, Umatilla, and Yakima. When 
the gold discoveries of 1860 and 1861 became known, 
the activities of the cowboys were multiplied, added 
bands of stock were driven in, all the wild and ex- I 
travagant features of a combined cowboy and mining 
age, vendors of " chain-lightning and forty-rod," j 
gamblers, prostitutes, murderers, — and with them ' 
missionaries and teachers, — became reproduced again 
on the shores of the Columbia, Snake, Clearwater, 
Salmon, Walla Walla, and other rivers of the Inland 
Empire. It was another of those wild eras in which 
the worst and the best that are in human nature , 
jostled each other at every turn. 

Transportation problems followed close upon the |, 
cowboy and the miner. The Oregon Steam Naviga- \ 
tion Company, organised in 1860, began within a 
year to run steamboats from Portland to Lev/iston, « 
with portage railroads around the Cascades and the J 
Dalles. Stage lines were started from Umatilla, 
Walla Walla, and Lewiston, within a year or two 
after the gold discoveries of Oro Fino. Prairie- i 
schooners, huge waggons, sometimes three in tandem 
fashion, drawn by a team of twent}^ mules, with jing- 
ling bells, driven with a " single line," formed the 
approved system of hauling freight over the mountain 
roads. In addition to the stages and prairie-schooners, o 
however, thousands of mules and horses were driven 
with pack-saddles over the trails and roads. Then 
was the time when " throwing the diamond hitch " be- 



Era of the Cowboy 255 

came a fine art. Then was the time, too, when it be- 
hooved stage-drivers and packers to be handy with a 
" gun," for " road-agents " were plentiful and vigilant. 
Many a man with a pack-saddle loaded with gold- 
dust, or sometimes with whiskey or even " canned 
goods," " passed in his checks " under some over- 
shadowing tree or behind some sheltering rock. 

Both the distresses and the successes of that epoch 
are well illustrated bj^ extracts from some of the 
newspapers of the time. From issues of the Wash- 
ington Statesman of Walla Walla, we learn that flour 
was at one time a dollar a pound; beef, thirty to fifty 
cents a pound; bacon, sixty; beans, thirty; rice, fifty; 
tea a dollar and a half; tobacco, a dollar and a half; 
sugar, fifty cents; candles, a dollar. Some of these 
staples could not be had at all. Physicians, when 
they got into the mines, would charge twenty dollars 
a visit. Board was from five to ten dollars a day, 
frequently more. 

But as an offset to the expense and frequent posi- 
tive suffering, we gather the following item from an 
issue of the Statesman in December, 1861 : 

S. F. Ledyard arrived last evening from the Salmon River 
mines, and from him it is learned that some six hundred miners 
would winter there; that some two hundred had gone to the 
south side of the river, where two streams head that empty 
into the Salmon, some thirty miles south-east of the present 
mining camp. Coarse gold is found, and as high as one hun- 
dred dollars per day to the man has been taken out. The big 
mining claim of the old locality belongs to Mr. Weiser of Ore- 
gon, from which two thousand six hundred and eighty dollars 
were taken out on the 20th, with two rockers. On the 21st, 
three thousand three hundred and sixty dollars were taken out 
with the same machines. 



256 The Columbia River 

The Statesman for December 13, 1861, contains 
the following: 

During the week past not less than two hundred and 
twenty-five pack animals, heavily laden with provisions, have 
left this city for the mines. A report in relation to a rich 
strike by Mr. Bridges of Oregon City seems to come well 
authenticated. The first day he worked on his claim (near 
Baboon Gulch) he took out fifty-seven ounces; the second day 
he took out one hundred and fifty-seven ounces ; the third day, 
two hundred and fourteen ounces; and the fourth day, two 
hundred ounces in two hours. 

As an ounce of gold was worth sixteen dollars, it will 
be seen that Mr. Bridges of Oregon City had truly 
" struck it rich." 

Within a year, a million and a half dollars in gold- 
dust had been taken from those mines. Anticipated 
demands led cattlemen to rush still larger numbers 
of stock into the upper Columbia Basin, and traders 
brought in yet larger supplies of goods into Walla 
Walla and Lewiston, as well as the mining camps 
themselves. A considerable part of these goods, we 
regret to narrate, consisted of material for spirituous 
refreshments. That the said refreshments were of a 
stalwart character may be inferred from a reminis- 
cence of a traveller to Walla Walla, who relates that 
upon going into one of the numerous saloons, he 
found the floor covered with sawdust, and upon ask- 
ing for whiskey, he received with it a whisk-broom. 
Feeling puzzled as to the intent of the latter, and not ^ 
wishing to reveal his ignorance, he waited till another 
man came in. Waiting for developments, he found 
that the object of the broom was to sweep off a place 
on the floor to have a fit on, for the whiskey was sure 



Era of the Farmer 257 

to produce one. After having got through his fit, 
the happy ( ?) purchaser would return the broom and 
go on his way. 

Just as miners, cowboys, and traders were phmg- 
ing eagerly into every form of enterprise, the famous 
" hard winter " of '61 descended upon the country. 
It was almost a Minnesota winter. There was snow 
on the ground from December 1st to March 22d, 
something never known before or since in the Colum- 
bia Basin. Cattle could find no food and perished 
by the thousands. JMiners were found frozen into 
the stiff crust.* In the rude cabins, with wide cracks 
into which the snow drifted, the few women and 
children in the Inland Empire fought a distressing 
and frequently losing fight. Even in the Willamette 
Valley where houses were more comfortable, sup- 
plies more plentiful, and the weather less severe, the 
conditions were hard enough. At Portland the price 
of hay was eighty dollars a ton. In Eastern Oregon 
it could not be obtained for any price, and the main- 
tenance of life by cattle depended entirely on their 
endurance. 

But with the coming on of tardy spring, the rush 
up the River was resumed, and the game went on. 
Seven millions in gold was reported in 1862, besides 
almost as much, as was estimated, taken out in ways 
of which no record was reported. 

At Florence in February, 1862, flour was a dol- 
lar a pound; butter, three dollars; sugar, a dollar and 
a quarter; coffee, two dollars; boots, thirty dollars a 
pair. 

The enormous profits, as well as enormous expense, 
of developing those mines hastened the coming of the 
17 



258 The Columbia River 

farmer. Among the throng that passed madly into 
the mountains for gold, and among the throng that 
drove the wide-horned cattle over the bunch-grass 
hills, there were a few keen-eyed observers who asked 
themselves if wheat and corn and potatoes and barley 
and fruit-trees might not grow on those broad prairies, 
and especially along the numerous watercourses de- 
scending from the Blue JMountains. 

A farm here and there at some favourable point 
beside some favouring stream, followed in two or 
three years by a flour-mill, then a few apples whose 
bright red cheeks and fragrant smell showed that the 
upper Columbia lands could match those of the Willa- 
mette, then an experimental wheat-field or barley- 
field on the high bunch-grass prairies, — and, almost 
before people realised it, the farmer was standing up be- 
side the miner and the stockman, as tall and broad and 
important as either. The plough and the hoe and the 
mowing-machine took their places beside the pick and 
gold-pan and quirt and shaps and spurs as symbols of 
Columbia River nobility. _ 

The " boomer " was the logical result of the de- 
velopment of mine and range and farm and garden 
and orchard. If people were going to eat and travel 
and raise wheat and cattle, they must inevitably buy 
and sell. And if they were going to buy and sell, 
they must needs " boom." The decade of the eighties 
was the great age of the boom in real estate along the 
Columbia and its tributaries. Then, as also upon 
Puget Sound, cities were founded with most extrava- 
gant size and expectations — on paper. Farm lands 
changed hands rapidly. If a man could raise nothing 
else on his land, he could at least raise the price. 



Era of the Boomer 259 

That was the time when the boomer boomed, the pro- 
moter promoted, and the sucker sucked. It was a 
great age, but alas, it was followed by an awakening, 
similar to that which follows a night of carousal, when 
the next day brings a dark-brown taste in the mouth 
and a very heavy head. The decade of the nineties 
was dolorous along the River and in the mines and 
forests and farms and town-lots and additions and 
suburbs adjoining. 

Interlocked with the days of miner, cowboy, rancher, 
and boomer, was another age of equal importance and 
one that was both result and cause of the others. This 
was the age of the railroad builder. 

Transportation by the River was a great feature 
of traffic in the fifties and sixties. But, during 
the second of those decades, the people of Portland 
began to realise that the time had arrived for rails 
as well as sails. The first great transcontinental rail- 
road, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific, was in 
active process of building between California and 
Omaha. A fever of railroad building spread to the 
Columbia River people. Railroads were projected 
from Portland on both sides of the Willamette, up 
the valley, with the view of ultimate connection with 
California. Surveys were made by S. G. Elliott 
from JNIarysville, California, to Portland in 1863. It 
was October, 1870, when the first train reached Salem, 
the capital of the State. The road was known as the 
Oregon Central Railroad, and its manager and ulti- 
matety its chief owner was Ben Holladay, the most 
famous railroad man of that period in Oregon. In 
1871 and 1872, railroad building was extended on 
the west side of the Willamette. The lines on both sides 



26o The Columbia River 

were reorganised under Mr. HoUaday's control as the 
Oregon and California Railroad. 

Meanwhile the air was full of discussion of a 
transcontinental line to the Pacific Northwest. The 
conception of a Northern Pacific railroad was nothing 
new. Away back in 1853, Governor I. I. Stevens 
and Captain George B. McClellan had made a re- 
connaissance across the Rocky and Cascade INIountains 
and over the great plains of the Columbia, for the 
purpose of ascertaining a route for a northern line. 
They pronounced the route feasible, but the time 
had not yet come for such an undertaking. In a letter 
to McClellan of April 5, 1853, Governor Stevens 
states the route to be from St. Paul to Puget 
Sound by the great bend of the Missouri River. It 
is interesting to note that this is nearly the course 
afterwards followed. 

Work on the Northern Pacific was begun in the 
vicinity of Kalama on the Columbia in 1870. The 
financial panic of 1873 resulted in the failure of Jay 
Cooke & Company, the backers of the enterprise, 
and for several years railroad work was at a standstill. 

In 1879 there came to Oregon the greatest rail- 
road builder of that era, Henry Villard. He was a 
true financial genius, daring, far-seeing, persistent, 
and self-reliant. With the quick grasp of a states- 
man, Mr. Villard perceived that the Columbia River 
was the key to a boundless opJ)ortunit3^ He saw 
that a central line up the Columbia with branches 
north, east, and south-east, might be thrust like a 
wedge between the Northern Pacific and the Union 
Pacific and control both. In pursuance of this con- 
ception he made three rapid moves. The first was the 



Era of the Railroad Builders 261 

incorporation of the Oregon Railway and Navigation 
Company. The second was the formation of the 
" blind pool " and the Oregon and Transcontinental 
Company. The third was the acquisition of a con- 
trolling interest in the Northern Pacific Railroad. 
The three j-ears up to and including 1883 were years 
of almost feverish activity along the River. The line 
of the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company 
between Wallula and Portland was pushed on with 
tireless energy. Rock bluffs were split off by enor- 
mous charges of dynamite, or were tunnelled through. 
The road was indeed built so hastily and the curves 
were in some cases so extreme that much work had 
to be done over at later times. 

A part of Villard's plan in pushing the work so 
hastily was to divert the Northern Pacific system to 
the River, and make Portland rather than Puget 
Sound the western terminus. The undertaking 
seemed to be crowned with success. The connection 
was made. A gorgeous celebration, the greatest ever 
held in the Columbia River country, commemorated, 
in October, 1883, the completion of the transconti- 
nental railroad to tide-water on the Columbia River. 
But in the very hour of victory, the sceptre fell from 
Villard's hands. His downfall was as sudden and 
dramatic as his rise. By clever jobbing of the market, 
the Wright interests regained possession of the majority 
of the Northern Pacific stock, the transcontinental 
pool broke, and at the very time that JNIr. Villard 
was being worshipped at Portland as the financial 
god of the North-west, he learned that his gigantic 
enterprise had fallen into the hands of the enemy. 
But in spite of defeat the work of Villard was as- 



262 The Columbia River 

sured, and his name and fame as the champion 
railroad builder of the Columbia River was established. 
After the Wright interests had regained possession 
of the Northern Pacific, that great system was 
pushed to Puget Sound. The Oregon Short Line 
was carried to a connection with the Union Pacific 
system. Thus two independent transcontinental lines 
reached the River. Yet later the Southern Pacific 
system acquired control of the Oregon and California 
Railroad, and, by joining the sections, connected the 
Columbia River with the Golden Gate. Through 
connecting lines the Canadian Pacific Railroad gained 
access to the Columbia River. Thus there are four 
distinct transcontinental railroad systems in the valley 
of our River. Two more have extended their lines in- 
to this region, and the North-western is approaching. 
Many local and connecting lines have been built. 
The Astoria and Columbia River Railroad, on the 
Oregon side of the River, joins Portland to Astoria and 
Seaside and the other resorts of the ocean beach. The 
Oregon— Washington R. R. and Navigation Co. has con- 
tinuous connection on the south side of the Columbia 
and Snake rivers to Riparia on the latter stream, and 
thence by a road on the north side, owned jointly 
with the Northern Pacific, to Lewiston, Idaho. The 
most remarkable of all these connecting and joint 
roads is the Spokane, Portland, and Seattle Railroad, 
commonly called the " North Rank Road." This is 
supposed to be the joint propertj?" of the Northern 
Pacific and Great Northern railroads. It is one of 
the many monuments in the West to the financial 
genius and tireless energy of James J. Hill. It was 
completed in 1908, between Pasco and Portland, and 



Era of the Railroad Builders 263 

at the first of the year following, from Pasco to 
Spokane. It is said to be the most expensively and 
scientifically built road in the United States, having 
curves and grades reduced to a minimum, being, in 
fact, a continuous descent from near Spokane to 
tide-water. Its builders evidently expect stupendous 
traffic, and every feature of the line is adjusted to 
such expectation. 

Any account of the great railroads joining the 
Inland Empire to the River and thence to the sea- 
board would be incomplete without reference to the 
pioneer of them all, the " Strap-iron " narrow-gauge 
from Walla Walla to Wallula. This line was forced 
by the exigencies of the times, but it commemorates 
the rare commercial foresight and ability of a man, 
who, in native business genius, ranks with the fore- 
most in the history of the Columbia Valley. This 
man was Dr. D. S. Baker, a native of Illinois, an 
immigrant to the Columbia in 1848, and a settler in 
Walla Walla in 1860. Perceiving the vast latent re- 
sources of the Inland Empire, he invested in land, 
founded a bank, became a partner in a store, and 
during much of the time was also actively engaged 
in his profession of medicine. 

In 1863, the Oregon Steam Navigation Company 
w^as running boats from Portland to Lewiston, over 
four hundred miles, having short railroad portages at 
the Cascades and The Dalles. That was the most 
active era of the mines in Idaho. Rates from Port- 
land to up-river points were as follows: freight 
from Portland to Wallula, $50.00 per ton; to Lewis- 
ton, $90.00; fare from Portland to Wallula, $18.00; 
to Lewiston, $28.00. (The rates had been much 



264 The Columbia River 

higher a year or two earher.) From Wallula to 
Walla Walla, freight was hauled by prairie-schooners 
at from $10.00 to $12.00 a ton, thirty miles. Need- 
less to say, the company piled up a fortune. 

Dr. Baker saw the possibilities of the region and, 
almost unaided, with every difficulty and discourage- 
ment, constructed a narrow gauge, with wooden rails, 
on which strap-iron was fastened. An astonishing 
amount of business was soon developed, steel rails 
were substituted, and the business made a fortune for 
its builder. It was absorbed by the Oregon Steam 
Navigation Company. But Dr. Baker's strap-iron 
road may be considered the true progenitor of the 
railroads of the upper Columbia. 

During these first years of the twentieth century, 
the shores of the River have echoed with the sound of 
whistles on many a new road, but the distinguishing 
mark has been the construction of electric roads. 
The lower Willamette Valley, centring at Portland, 
has become fairly swarming with electric roads. Spo- 
kane has become almost an equal centre of electric 
lines, while Walla Walla is following close behind 
her larger sisters in the procession. When lines al- 
ready constructed from Spokane southward are joined 
to a system projected from Walla Walla northward 
and westward, there will be a complete system of in- 
dependent electric lines from all parts of Eastern 
Washington and North-eastern Oregon to steamboat 
connections on the River, and thence to tide-water. 
The significance of this as a commercial fact cannot 
be realised as yet. Yakima is also becoming the centre 
of an extensive trolley system. 



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CHAPTER XII 

The Present Age of Expansion and World 
Commerce 

Population and Productions of the Region on the River and its 
Tributaries — Extent of its Navigability — Improvements Needed 
— Kinds of Traffic — Local Traffic — Transcontinental Traffic — 
World Traffic — Advantages of the River Route for these Kinds 
of Traffic— The Bar— The Competition of Puget Sound— The 
Combination of River Route and Sound Route. 

WE have traced the successive eras which have 
brought the land of the Oregon from a wilder- 
ness to a group of powerful young Ameri- 
can States, abounding in resources and filled to the 
brim with hope and enthusiasm. We have followed 
the River through its eras of canoe, bateau, flat- 
boat, sail-ship, and steamboat, and we have seen rail- 
roads built along its banks. It remains only to cast 
a brief final glance at the River in its present age, 
and to forecast something of what seems its sure 
future. 

It may be said that the population of those parts 
of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, and ^Ion- 
tana, which are embraced in the watershed of the 
Columbia, is probably nearly a million and a quarter. 
The population of the area in British Columbia is 
scanty, but rapidly increasing. 

The productive capacity is very great. A rough 

265 



266 The Columbia River 

estimate of production in the valley of the Columbia 
in an average year would probably give a grain produc- 
tion of ninety million bushels, a lumber output of 
three billion feet, a mineral output worth sixty million 
dollars, and a combined output of pastoral, horticul- 
tural, fishing, and miscellaneous industries of fifty 
millions of dollars. 

Such figures indicate that the Columbia River is 
already a factor in world commerce. Yet its devel- 
opment is but begun. What is to be its part in the 
world commerce of the future? 

Inspection of a map will show that the Columbia 
possesses the only water-level route from the vast pro- 
ductive regions of the Inland Empire to the seaboard. 
As has been shown in the course of this volume, the 
River is navigable throughout the larger part of its 
course from Revelstoke in British Columbia to the 
ocean. In that distance there is one canal, with locks. 
That is at the Cascades, sixty-five miles from Port- 
land. Before the River can be continuously navigable 
it will be necessary that a canal be constructed to 
overcome the obstructions at the Dalles, a few miles 
above the city of that name, another at Priest Rapids, 
seventy miles above Pasco, and still another at Kettle 
Falls. The Government is already engaged in the 
first of these works. The second seems comparatively 
near of accomplishment by reason of work done and 
projected by a powerful irrigation company. Nothing 
has yet been done at Kettle Falls, but it would be 
comparatively a light task to provide canal and locks 
at that point. Besides these larger obstructions there 
are several rapids at points between Kettle Falls and 
the Dalles which impede navigation at certain stages 



Expansion and World Commerce 267 

of water. The Government has made surveys of 
these sections of the River, and has announced that 
with comparatively small outlay the rocks and reefs 
may be removed, the channels deepened and straight- 
ened, and the River made navigable. One thing may 
be emphasised in this connection, and this is that the 
Columbia River has mainly a rocky bed, and hence 
work on the channels is permanent. It will not cut and 
fill, nor pile up islands and bars as does the Missouri. 

In view of the capability of the River to carry 
great water traffic, and in view of the fact that rail- 
road traffic is seeking and will still more seek the 
down-hill grade to the sea, it becomes a question of 
great interest what the future commerce of the River 
will be. 

It is evident that there will be three kinds of 
traffic: local, transcontinental, world-wide. Each is 
bound to be vast beyond the calculations or even the 
imagination of the present. The local traffic is sure 
to be immense, for it is estimated that there is a 
million acres of land immediateh'' contiguous to the 
River, irrigable and adapted to intensive farming. 
Present experience shows that five or ten acres of 
such land are sufficient to support a family. JNIany 
cities and towns are sure to grow upon the banks of 
the River. Its banks will sometime become populated 
like those of ancient Nile. Besides the immediate 
region of the River, there are millions upon millions 
of acres of land more remote, the great wheat fields 
and stock ranges and valley lands of tributary streams, 
and these broad areas will seek the river route. JMuch 
of this immense local traffic of the future will be 
conveyed by steamboats and barges. 



268 The Columbia River 

The second class of traffic will be the transconti- 
nental. All the railroads across the continent, except 
those down the Columbia, are obliged to climb the Cas- 
cade or Sierra Nevada Mountains, about 4000 feet high. 
With difficulty two powerful locomotives pull a freight 
train of forty cars up the grades, and at some points 
even a third is needed. But a single locomotive will 
pull eighty cars on the level grades of the River 
roads. In the even keener competition bound to come, 
this advantage of grades and curves will be a factor 
of immense importance. 

The third class of future commerce is the world- 
wide. No western American can contemplate the 
future of the world without being p3rsuaded that 
the Pacific Ocean and its shores will be the scene of the 
greatest problems of the twentieth century. If this 
prove true, that world commerce of the Pacific will 
seek that point of the American continent which most 
swiftly and cheaply communicates with the eastern 
side of the continent and with Europe. Granting that 
a large part of world commerce will pass through the 
Panama Canal, there will still be, without question, an 
immense trade between the Orient and such points in our 
own country as are so far from the Atlantic seaboard 
that a transcontinental route is a necessity. IMore- 
over, even for our Atlantic seaboard and for Europe, 
there will be large amounts of products, for the transit 
of which time will be a great object. Hence we may 
be sure that there will be extensive world commerce 
across the American continent. If so, where will it 
cross? Inspection of a globe demonstrates that the 
Columbia River route is shortest, and, for reasons 
already given, it is cheapest of all. 



Expansion and World Commerce 269 

Puget Sound is its only present competitor. But 
the water-grade through the Cascade Mountains, along 
the banks of the Columbia, constitutes an advantage 
beyond the reach of permanent competition. Here, 
however, the critic comes in and claims that the Bar 
at the mouth of the River forbids entrance of the 
largest ships. This in a measure is true, though the 
difficulties of the Columbia Bar have been grossly 
exaggerated. There are about forty feet of water on 
the Bar at the lowest tide. The flood-tide adds from 
six to twelve feet. In any ordinary weather, forty 
feet of water is safe enough for any vessel. But if 
marine architecture is going to keep pace with growing 
commerce, we may soon have ships drawing thirty 
feet of water. If so, the Bar may indeed seriously 
block the heaviest commerce. Some observers have, 
therefore, believed that the big freights of the future 
will enter the Straits of Fuca, go to some one of the 
Puget Sound ports, thence pass by rail across the low 
tract of country between the Sound and the Columbia 
River, and proceed thence by the River route to the 
interior and eastward. This would combine the ad- 
vantages of the two great routes of the Pacific North- 
west, abundant depth of water, low altitudes, and easy 
grades. This would, in truth, come nearest to realis- 
ing the dream of the old navigators, the Strait of Anian. 
In any event, the future world will look to our River 
as the goal of markets as well as of vision, and as a high- 
way of nations both for freights and for tourists. 



CHAPTER XIII 

New Channels and New Highways 

THE descriptive parts of this volume deal mainly 
with the works of nature. Those of man seem 
relatively trifling in comparison with the tre- 
mendous results of the ages in which the energies of fire 
and frost, earthquake and upheaval, have been shap- 
ing the architecture of the Columbia River, with its 
mountains and plains, its channels and its shores. Yet 
it must needs be that the human equation at last find 
expression, and in the manner in which our people have 
added their own labour and intelligence to the gifts of 
nature, we find abundant material for interest. We 
have traced that series of events during which the dis- 
coverers, the immigrants, the cultivators, the trans- 
porters, were compelled to take the River just as they 
found it, and whether by trail or channel, adapt their 
movements and aims to unchanged nature. But that 
would not permanently satisfy the ever-increasing needs 
of growing enterprise and industry. To provide for the 
rapidly incoming population, it was necessary that 
human labour and ingenuity modify the untamed forces 
of the River. 

Moreover, as varied ambitions and broader culture 
grew with growing cities, and the Tourist World began 

to come and see, it became more plain to the people of 

270 



New Channels and New Highways 271 

the River that, aside from its Hmitless industrial, and 
commercial power, it was a scenic attraction which 
might not only mould the minds and characters of its 
sons and daughters, but might also draw hosts of sight- 
seers. 

As a result of these conditions and incentives, there 
has come on, as the culmination of successive periods, 
the period of channel and highway improvement. 
While much was accomplished at intervals, though 
slowly, during the years of early settlement, it may be 
said that the years 1913, 1914, 1915, and 1916, were 
pre-eminently those composing the epoch of new 
channels and new roads. The chief events that make 
this period so important are these: opening of the 
River to much larger navigation by the completion of the 
Celilo Canal in 1915; the completion of the south jetty 
and inauguration of extensive work on the north jetty, 
together with dredging on a large scale, whereby the 
depth of water on the Bar has been increased to forty 
feet at low tide; the creation on the Oregon shore 
from Portland to the eastern boundary of Multnomah 
County of the Columbia Scenic Highway; and the 
inauguration of a ship-building industry which at the 
date of this writing seems likely to have large influence 
on industry and commerce in the North-west and on 
the Pacific Ocean. 

We have spoken in previous chapters of the Celilo 
Canal and the jetty system. It may suffice to add here 
that persistent effort by the representatives of the 
North-west in Congress, and wide-spread publicity by 
newspapers, Chambers of Commerce, and private 
citizens, at length awakened Congress to the import- 
ance of the Columbia River as a factor in commerce. 



272 The Columbia River 

It became clear that, next to the Mississippi-Ohio 
system, the Columbia was the river most worthy of 
appropriations. For successive years engineers made 
reports in favour of the Celilo Canal and the improve- 
ments at the Bar. Appropriations became liberal and 
regular, and since the beginning, there has been appro- 
priated over thirty million dollars by the Government, 
and nearly a third as much by the ports of Portland 
and Astoria and States of Oregon and Washington. 

Large as this outlay seems the resulting benefits 
have been already felt to such a degree as to prove the 
wisdom of the policy, and to foretoken a period of 
growth beyond any past experience. 

The Celilo Canal was completed and thrown open 
to navigation in April, 1915. In the early part of May 
the entire River region joined in a week's demonstra- 
tions which began at Lewiston, Idaho, and ended at 
Astoria, Oregon. 

Nearly all the Senators, Representatives, and 
Governors in the North-west attended. Schools and 
colleges had a holiday, business was largely suspended, 
and the entire River region joined in a great jubilee. A 
fleet of steamers traversed the entire course from Lewis- 
ton down, five hundred miles. Lewiston and Clarkston 
were hostesses on May 3d; Pasco, Kennewick, Wallula 
(which is the landing place for Walla Walla), and Uma- 
tilla, on May 4th; Celilo, where the formal ceremonies 
of dedication occurred, and The Dalles, May 5th; Van- 
couver and Portland, May 6th; Kalama and Kelso, 
May 7tli; and Astoria, May 8th, and there the pageant 
ended with a great excursion to the Ocean Beach. 

Briefly referring to the improvements at the mouth 
of the River, it may be stated that work was started on 



New Channels and New Highways 273 

the south jetty over thirty years ago. At first seem- 
ingly successful, the work was nullified by subsequent 
shoaling, and it became clear that the jetty must be 
lengthened and a companion jetty constructed on the 
north side. While these two great tasks were in 
progress, the engineers determined upon systematic 
dredging. The south jetty was carried to a point 
four and a half miles from its starting point on Point 
Adams in 1913. At about the same time work was 
begun on the north jetty, while the U. S. dredge 
Chinook began its part of the programme upon the Bar. 
As a result of this combination of forces, the outgoing 
current has so cut the crest of the Bar that there is now 
forty feet at low tide. The momentous effects of such 
added facilities for large vessels are patent. As one 
direct result, the old city of Astoria, oldest city west of 
the Missouri River and north of California, has taken 
on new life. In 1914 and 1915 great improvements 
took place, the chief being a municipal dock, one of the 
finest in the world, at a cost of $750,000. During the 
same period, James J. Hill, the great Empire builder 
of the North-west, constructed a series of docks and 
warehouses at Flavel, three miles down the River 
from Astoria, at a cost of a million dollars. 

In the summer of 1914 the Hill interests started 
two great steamships, the Great Northern and the 
Northern Pacificy on the Flavel-San Francisco run. 
These vessels are without doubt the finest on the 
Pacific Ocean. They make the run of seven hundred 
miles in twenty-six hours. In fact the traveller, leav- 
ing Portland by a special train to Flavel and transfer- 
ring to one of these steamships, can make the journey 
from Portland to San Francisco in a shorter time than 



274 The Columbia River 

by rail. During the Exposition of 1915, the vessels 
were crowded with freight and passengers. Even yet, 
though that special stress has passed, they do a large 
business in both lines of service. 

But great as have been the outlays for improvement 
of the River channels and for ocean connections, the 
water route has by no means had a monopoly of inter- 
est and labour. In fact, it is likely that the period 
beginning with 1913 and extending to the date of this 
revision, with a prospect of continuance indefinitely, 
may be known to the future historian as the Age of 
Good Roads. A number of great highways are in pro- 
cess of construction in all the North-western States. 
While all have features worthy of interest and admira- 
tion, the consensus of opinion is no doubt that Columbia 
Scenic Highway is in a class by itself and is the greatest 
asset of the kind in this part of the world. It is pro- 
jected and laid out from Portland to the Dalles, a dis- 
tance of about ninety miles. It was completed in all 
particulars including paving with Warrenite, the entire 
distance from Portland to the east boundary of Mult- 
nomah County, about forty-two miles, during the spring 
of 1916. The total cost of the Highway proper from the 
Sandy River to the County boundary was approximately 
a million and a quarter dollars, or $48,000 per mile. 
The portion in Hood River and Wasco counties has been 
graded in part and at a few points completed. While there 
are yet gaps in that section where the old roads must be 
followed, the road is entirely passable to The Dalles, and 
from there, to all parts of the Inland Empire and the entire 
country. A great tide of travel, almost entirely by auto- 
mobiles, over the whole distance between The Dalles and 
Portland, attests the manifold delights of this journey. 



New Channels and New Highways 275 

Travellers familiar with the greatest scenic roads 
in the Old World have been so impressed with this road 
along the banks of the Great River that they have al- 
most exhausted the language to express themselves. It 
has been declared by many that the world elsewhere 
does not match this Scenic Highway. 

The history of this great work is a tribute to the 
enterprise and patriotism of the people of Oregon, 
particularly Portland, and to four men especially, whose 
mention could not excite a jealous pang in the mind of 
any others, so fully and proudly is their pre-eminence 
recognised. These four men, all citizens of Portland, 
are Samuel Hill, Simon Benson, John B. Yeon, and 
Samuel C. Lancaster. The first named has been known 
the world over as a student and promoter of good roads. 
The second contributed large sums of money and valu- 
able land to pressing the movement which eventuated 
in the Highway. The third, having been chosen road- 
master by the commissioners of Multnomah County, 
gave, without compensation, two years of time and the 
most exacting, often exhausting attention to superin- 
tending the work. Mr. Lancaster was the engineer in 
charge, and of the splendid result of his skill and good 
judgment one has but to view it to be convinced. Mr. 
Lancaster's book on the subject, the book of a poet as 
well as an engineer, and superbly illustrated, is the 
authority on his noble achievement. 

Like other great works, the Columbia Highway was 
a growth. While many far-seeing pioneers anticipated 
that sometime there would be a land route along the 
bank of the River, yet the engineering difiiculties and 
the expense of overcoming those stupendous cliffs were 
so great as to forbid action during early times. 



276 The Columbia River 

It is very interesting to note that as long ago as 1864 
General Rufus Ingalls, who was for a number of years 
quartermaster of the command at Fort Vancouver, 
wrote from the army of the Potomac to Senator Nesmith 
of Oregon, urging the necessity of a road from the Fort 
to the interior through the gorge of the Columbia. 
He says that it cost $25 a ton to transport freight to 
The Dalles. General Ingalls was thinking of the need 
largely from a military point of view, for it cost the 
Government, he says, about $25,000 each quarter to 
ship the needed supplies to The Dalles. 

Agitated from time to time by those usually smil- 
ingly regarded as dreamers, the conception slumbered 
in a few ambitious minds. Pieces of road were built 
at a few points, but not connected, and some were 
abandoned. At last on July 27, 1913, Rufus C. Hol- 
man. Chairman of the Commissioners of Multnomah 
County, moved a resolution for an Advisory Board 
on Roads and Highways. A month later the recom- 
mendation of the Board was adopted, providing for the 
appointment of Mr. Lancaster as engineer in charge. 
Under the impulse given by this decisive step work on a 
great scale proceeded rapidly, and by an election held in 
Multnomah County on April 14, 1915, a bond issue of 
one million, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, 
for paving the Highway to the county line, and for 
paving several other trunk roads, was carried by an 
overwhelming majority. 

Thus provided for, the Highway was pressed rapidly 
to completion, and on June 7, 1916, the formal dedica- 
tion occurred. It is estimated that fifteen thousand 
automobiles traversed the Highway on that day. So 
important was the event that it truly may be affirmed 



New Channels and New Highways 277 

that when President Wilson pressed the button which 
let loose the Stars and Stripes on Crown Point, the scene 
of dedication, he was participating in an event of world 
history. To crown the construction of the Highway, 
certain men donated lands for parks at pivotal points 
which will be forever free playgrounds. Osman Royal 
gave two acres at Crown Point, the highest and most 
commanding point on the Highway and the scene of 
one of the most unique constructions on this roador any 
other road. George Shepperd gave eleven acres at a 
point now known as Shepperd's Dell, conspicuous even 
among so many beautiful points. Simon Benson, not 
content with donating thousands of dollars and much 
valuable time, secured and donated three hundred acres 
covering the section of the most remarkable water- 
falls, as Multnomah, Waukeena, and Oneonta. This 
is now fittingly known as Benson Park. Jacob Kanzler 
rendered another most important service by so present- 
ing the matter to the Government that a tract of four- 
teen thousand acres of the National Forest Reserve was 
set apart as a Plighw^ay Park. 

The visitor to Portland will have abundant oppor- 
tunity to "run out upon the Highway." Public 
taxis by the hundred are looking for passengers. The 
Highway ride is one of the great recreations of the resi- 
dents and in that wealthy and hospitable city of Port- 
land invitations to visitors to share this unique pleasure 
are commensurate with the delights. 

Spinning eastward up the entrancing shades of 
Sandy River, the tourist finds himself within an horn- 
standing on the parapets of Crown Point gazing down 
seven hundred and twenty-five feet perpendicular, 
while the vista of water and mountains east and w^est 



278 The Columbia River 

provides a perfect table of contents of the great port- 
folio of views before him. Then by concrete viaducts 
clinging to the face of towering cliffs, looking up leafy 
caiions, with waterfalls flashing in sight to disappear 
behind majestic firs and cedars, winding through shady 
bosks, to emerge suddenly upon the open base of rock- 
wall w ith its unobstructed view^ of the River, he finds 
himself in a constant state of anticipation, fulfilment, 
and anticipation again. All is a perpetual series of sur- 
prices, and no two scenes of the panorama are alike. 
Delightful as the auto transit is, a real nature lover 
ought to go afoot, for there is scarcely a rod that is not 
worthy of long observation. At least, it would be 
scarcely short of criminal to fail to climb in and out 
and around that great gallery of waterfalls, Latourelle, 
Bridal Veil, Coopey, J\list, Waukeena, Multnomah, 
Oneonta, Horsetail, and McCord Creek or Maiden's 
Leap, and every visitor that would do justice to him- 
self should explore Shepperd's Dell. Nor can he, with 
any propriety at all, omit climbing by the Waukeena or 
Multnomah Trail to the summit of Larch Mountain, 
whence the whole panorama lies before him, with the 
snowy monarchs of the Cascades in majestic cordon 
around the River. 

One extraordinary feature of the twenty-five miles 
of Highway between Crown Point and Cascade Locks 
is the grouping of water-falls with cliffs. Of these 
cliffs Wineemah Heights and St. Peter's Dome are the 
most impressive, but it is one long succession of tower- 
ing and tessellated walls, whose summits are from two 
thousand to three thousand feet in almost perpendicular 
height above the Highway winding about their base. 

Among the most extraordinary scenes on the entire 



New Channels and New Highways 279 

course of the road are Shell -Rock Mountain and 
Mitchell's Point. These are above the county line, but 
necessity compelled their improvement before there 
could be any continued passage to The Dalles. At 
Mitchell's Point a tunnel, three hundred and ninety 
feet long, with five great windows through the solid 
wall, carries the Highway at an elevation of about a 
hundred and fifty feet above the River, while at its 
w^estern approach a viaduct two hundred and eight feet 
long commands one of the most lordly views, as it is 
itself one of the most remarkable pieces of road con- 
struction in the world. Travellers assert that this 
tunnel and viaduct surpass the Axenstrasse overlooking 
Lake Uri in Switzerland, one of the most famous of 
European sights. 

The time is near at hand when available sites for 
summer homes will be found amid the unrivalled charms 
of the glens and rock-points along the Highway, as they 
already have to some degree along the River shores. 
The worshipper of wild nature may fear the taming 
influence of the inrush of population with its common- 
place conveniences and contrivances, but it is only just 
that the world enjoy these scenes, and we have faith 
that not even civilization can spoil them. 

One additional event connected with the Highw^ays 
of this region, worthy of special mention, pertains to the 
Pacific Highway extending through the three States of 
Washington, Oregon, and California. This special event 
is the construction of the Interstate Bridge across the 
Columbia River at Vancouver. This is one of the great- 
est structures of the kind in the world, being more than 
two miles in total length across the entire River, includ- 
ing Hay den's Island and the "flood sloughs." The 



28o The Columbia River 

expense, one million three hundred thousand dollars, 
has been met by bonds issued by Multnomah County, 
Oregon, and Clarke County, Washington. 

It remains only to speak of the era of ship-building, 
perhaps the most significant and encouraging tendency 
on the River at the present time. Upon the completion 
of the Panama Canal traffic turned at once to that route 
from Pacific Coast ports to the Atlantic. It was but 
fairly inaugurated when the closing of the Canal by 
slides for months stopped it. The world crime and 
catastrophe of war made an immediate and abnormal 
demand for ships. Charters doubled, quadrupled, and 
to considerable extent ships could not be commanded 
at any price. Hence, though the products of the North- 
west, wheat especially, rose greatly in price, the diffi- 
culty of securing water transportation operated to 
prevent the commercial and industrial activity which 
came to the Atlantic Coast of the U. S. as a result of the 
war. But it is not the habit of the sons of the Pioneers 
to sit down and wait under such conditions. Hence 
the years 1915 and 1916 witnessed the starting of an 
era of ship-building such as has not been known before 
and such as foreshadows the creation of a line of indus- 
tries which will revolutionize conditions upon the Pacific 
coast. This movement has been especially marked 
upon the Columbia. At Oswego on the Willamette, 
twelve miles above Portland, at other points both above 
and below Portland and nearer, at St. Helens on the 
Columbia, and at Astoria, the construction of vessels 
of both wood and steel, of all types and sizes, lumber 
schooners of large size predominating, is going on apace 
at this date. 



PART II 
A Journey Down the River 



29; 



CHAPTER I 

In the Heart of the Canadian Rockies 

Extent of Navigation on the River — Attractions of a Canoe Journey 
— The Canadian Pacific Railroad — Banff and Lake Louise — 
Summit of the Rockies — The Continental Divide and its Western 
Descent — Field and the Wapta River — Golden and the Upper 
Columbia — Peculiar Interlocking of the Columbia and the Koote- 
nai, and Professor Dawson's Explanation of this — Views of the 
Selkirks and the Rockies — Some Steamboat Men and their Tales 
— Captain Armstrong's Adventures on the Kootenai — The Picture 
Rocks — Lake Windermere — The Location of the Old Thompson 
Fort — Baptiste Morigeau and his Stories of Pioneer Days — The 
War between the Shuswaps and the Okanogans — Down the River 
from Golden — Rapids and Navigation — By the Canadian Pacific 
through the Selkirks — Glacier and the Illecillewaet — Revelstoke 
and the River again — Wise Management of the Canadian Govern- 
ment and the Railroad. 

A JOURNEY upon the River may best begin 
with its source and end with the ocean. It is 
about fourteen hundred miles by the windings 
of the stream from its origin in the upper Columbia 
Lake to the Pacific. It descends twenty-five hun- 
dred feet in that distance. It is therefore swift in 
many places. Yet it would be possible to descend 
almost the entire length of the River in a small boat. 
Nor can one imagine a more fascinating journey, 
especially if he could conjure back the shades of the 
great voijageurs of seventy years ago, as Monique 
and Charlefoux, famous in Dr. ]McLoughlin's time, 

283 



2S4 The Columbia River 

and listen to their gay song, mingling with the plash 
of oars: 

Ronli, roulant, ma boule roiilant, 

En roulant, ma boule roulant. 

The way of approach for the Eastern tourist to a 
journey down the Columbia is by the Canadian Paci- 
fic Railway, a magnificent road in a gallery of master- 
pieces. Wonders begin before he reaches the western 
watershed. He will see Banff, with its hot springs, 
its immense hotel, its Bow River and Falls and Valley. 
He will see the gem of the Canadian Rockies, one of 
the gems of the earth. Lake Louise. Imagine a 
glistening w^all of purest white, ]Mts. Lefroy and 
Victoria, with a vast glacier descending from them, 
great bastions of variously tinted rock closing on 
either side as a frame of the snowy picture, and in 
front a lake, small indeed, but of perfect form, a 
mirror in which the snowy wall, the glacier, the rocky 
ramparts, find a duplication as distinct as themselves. 

A few miles farther west, and the traveller will 
find himself at one of the most significant of all places, 
the Continental Divide. Eastward the water flows 
into the Bow, thence into the Saskatchewan, and ul- 
timately into the Atlantic. Westward the springs 
find their way to the branches of the Wapta, thence 
to the Columbia and the Pacific. The long westward 
ascent which we have followed all the way from Winni- 
peg ends at last. The track becomes level. We are 
at the summit. Looking southward we can see de- 
scending the steep slope, a clear mountain stream, 
which is parted into two branches by a little wall of 
stone. One branch goes east to the Atlantic, the other 
west to the Pacific. 



In the Heart of the Canadian Rockies 285 

It must have been of some such place, though 
farther north, that Holmes was imagining when he 
wrote : 

Yon stream, whose sources run 

Turned by a pebble's edge, 
Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun 

Through the cleft mountain-ledge. 

The slender rill had strayed, 

But for the slanting stone, 
To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid 

Of foam-flecked Oregon. 

At the parting of the streams, a pretty rustic 
framework has been erected, bearing the words, " The 
Continental Divide." 

We are now on the Columbia's waters. We are 
also in the heart of the Canadian Rockies, and in the 
midst of a perfect sea of mountains. It has been said 
that British Columbia is " fifty or sixty Switzerlands 
rolled into one." Here are five distinct ridges, up 
and down, and through and around which, the Colum- 
bia and its affluents chase each other in a dizzy dance. 

The descent of the west side of the Divide is ap- 
pallingly steep. From Stephen to Field is a drop of 
one thousand two hundred and fifty-seven feet in ten 
miles. In that distance are several places which reach 
two hundred and thirty-six feet to the mile. Most 
explicit directions are given to engineers in respect to 
handling trains on this grade. A speed of only six 
miles an hour is allowed, and frequent stops and tests 
of air-brakes and signals are required. By reason of 
the exceeding care, no serious accident has ever oc- 
curred. In ascending three locomotives are required 
for an ordinary train. 



286 The Columbia River 

There are several splendid resorts on the line of 
the Canadian railroad. Banff and Lake Louise are 
the resorts on the east side of the Divide. The first 
one west of that point is Field. There, as at all the 
other resorts, the hotels are managed by the Canadian 
Pacific Railroad Company. They are conducted with 
great skill and elegance, and may well be regarded as 
a tribute to the business ability and artistic taste of 
the managers. 

As we descend the steep grade from Stephen to 
Field, we catch glimpses of peak after peak, range 
after range, valley after valley, glacier after glacier, 
purple, saffron, red, dazzling white, glistening greens 
and blues. Mt. Stephen lifts its great wall over a 
mile of almost j)erpendicular height, and nearly oppo- 
site is the spire of Mt. Burgess. Mountain wonders 
and attractions of every sort lie in all directions from 
Field. Perhaps the finest is Yoho Valley. There 
are the Takkakaw Falls, twelve hundred feet high. 
There is the Wapta Glacier, itself a part of a prodi- 
gious ice-field, known as Wahputekh, lying between 
the towering heights of Mts. Gordon, Balfour, and 
Tralltinderne. 

Leaving Field, the road runs between two chains 
of mountains, the Ottertail on the north and the Van 
Home on the south. The former is bold and spire- 
like in outline, with the snow-fields and ice pinnacles 
of Mt. Goodwin closing the vista. The latter is less 
bold in contour, but has a colouring of yellow rock- 
slopes in beautiful contrast with the rich purple of the 
lower forests. 

Passing between those sublime mountain chains, 
we soon plunge into the Wapta canon, with its per- 




Natural Bridge Kicking Horse or Wapta River, and 
Mt. Stephen, B. C. 
Photo, by C. F. Yates. 



In the Heart of the Canadian Rockies 287 

pendicular walls of rock rising hundreds of feet on 
either side. The Wapta is more commonly known as 
the Kicking Horse. It received that name in this 
wise. The Palliser exploring expedition of 1858 had 
been seeking unsuccessfully a feasible route through 
the Rockies. In the progress of the search, Sir 
James Hector, then in charge of the party, pitched 
camp on the Wapta. While there a vicious horse 
kicked him with such effect that he was left on 
the ground apparently dead. The three Indians with 
him had, in fact, dug his grave. But while they were 
conveying him to it, he suddenly came to himself. 
Having recovered, he became curious to follow the 
stream where he had met with the disaster. As a 
result he discovered the caiion and a short route 
through the main chain. Upon the pass he bestowed 
the name of " Kicking Horse," and this has latterly 
been bestowed upon the river itself. The river is one 
of the most remarkable of the tributaries of the upper 
Columbia. It drains a cordon of glaciated peaks, 
from which it bears a vast volume of water, foaming 
and frothing with frequent cataracts down the steep 
descent, from fifty to a hundred feet to the mile. 

Forty-five miles west of the Divide we reach Golden 
on the Columbia. It is indeed a thrilling moment to 
the traveller when he first sets eyes upon these head- 
waters of the River of the West. Golden is a pleas- 
ant little town, a hundred and fifty miles below the 
upper Columbia Lake and twelve hundred and fifty 
by the windings of the River from its destination in 
the Pacific. 

At Golden we must pause and make ready for our 
first journey on the River. The greater part of the 



288 The Columbia River 

tourist travel passes by Golden, not realising that be- 
tween that pretty town and the lakes lie some of the 
most charming scenes in all the vast play-ground of 
British Columbia. 

We find at Golden several steamboats in command 
of captains who are very princes of good fellows, as 
Captain Armstrong of the Ptarinigan and Captain 
Blakeney of the Isabel, with whom we may journey 
from Golden to Lake Windermere. Over the hun- 
dred miles between these two points the Columbia is 
a slack-water stream, having a descent of but fifty 
feet in the distance from the extreme head waters to 
Golden. Over considerable part of this distance the 
River runs in bayous. These bayous or channels 
wind their serpentine courses through low flats, flooded 
at high water, and exposing fair expanses of vivid 
green at the subsidence of the waters. 

Professor Dawson, the eminent Canadian geo- 
logist, made a study of this section of the River some 
years before his death, and as a result expressed the 
opinion that the section of the Columbia above the 
mouth of Blue River, some thirty miles below Golden, 
formerly united with the Kootenai. But owing to 
some convulsion of nature, the surface was tilted just 
sufficiently to turn the section of the stream from 
Columbia Lake toward the north instead of the south, 
with the result that we have this slack-water system of 
lagoons and lakes constituting this marvellously pic- 
turesque division of the River. Now in confirmation 
of this theory of Professor Dawson we have in the 
relations of the Columbia and Kootenai the singular 
geographical phenomenon already referred to in an 
earlier chapter. The Kootenai runs through " Canal 




One of the Lagoons of the Upper Columbia River, 
near Golden, B. C. 
Photo, by C. F. Yates, Golden 



In the Heart of the Canadian Rockies 289 

Flats," in which the upper Columbia Lake is situated, 
and comes within a mile of that lake. It is nine feet 
higher than the lake, but there is no high land there, 
and at one time a canal joined the Kootenai with the 
lake. This canal was wrecked in the great flood of 
1894, but steamboats had run through it from the 
Kootenai to the Columbia, and it would be entirely 
feasible to reconstruct it. After having thus passed 
within a mile of each other and evidently having once 
been actually connected, the two rivers part company. 
The Columbia flows north and the Kootenai south. 
Each makes a vast bend. Again they reverse di- 
rections, the Columbia flowing south and the Kootenai 
north, and then come together many miles from their 
point of separation. 

Aside from the unique beauty of the lagoons and 
the grassy shores, the eye of the traveller is delighted 
with the two mountain chains which confront each 
other across those glassy channels throughout the en- 
tire stretch from Golden to Windermere. On the 
east side is the main chain of the Rockies, and on the 
west are the Selkirks. 

As we proceed on the deep, still stream, gliding 
from channel to channel, we may find ourselves mightily 
entertained by the conversation of such a navigator as 
Captain Armstrong or Captain Blakeney. For each 
can command a fund of historical and descriptive 
matter of rare interest. 

Captain Armstrong was one of the earliest pilots 
on the Kootenai. In 1894 he built the North Star 
at Jennings, ]Montana, ran her up the wild stream to 
Canal Flats, thence through the canal to the Colum- 
bia lakes, and into the River itself. A more exquisite 



290 The Columbia River 

stretch of river navigation than that through Cohim- 
bia Lake, Lake Adela, and Lake Windermere, and 
from them into the lagoons of the River, can scarcely 
be found or even imagined, and it was the lot of the 
North Star to ply upon that route until her unhappy 
destruction by tire in 1900. 

There is little danger of accident on the placid 
water of the uppermost Columbia, but it is far dif- 
ferent on the Kootenai. We heard many a tale of 
steamboating adventure from these pilots. 

One of these so well illustrates those old-time con- 
ditions that we repeat here its chief points. Captain 
Armstrong owned two steamers, the liiith and the 
GtcetidoUne. Both were engaged in transporting 
freight by way of Jennings to Fort Steele and the 
various mining camps in that district. The business 
was enormously profitable, for the boats received two 
and one half cents a pound. At that particular time 
there were twenty-six cars on the Great Northern 
Railway awaiting shipments. 

From his two steamers Captain Armstrong some- 
times made two thousand dollars a day in gross re- 
ceipts. But though profitable, the business was also 
correspondingly risky. The Jennings Canon, above 
Bonner's Ferry, is, perhaps, the worst piece of water 
that has ever been navigated on the Columbia or its 
tributaries. A strip of water, foaming-white, down- 
hill almost as on a steep roof, hardly wider than the 
steamboat, savage-looking rocks waiting to catch hold 
of any unwary craft that might venture through, — so 
forbidding in fact was that route that Captain Arm- 
strong found no insurance agent that felt disposed to 
insure his boats and cargo. At last he induced a San 




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In the Heart of the Canadian Rockies 291 

Francisco agent to make the trip with him and to offer 
a rate. After sitting in silence on the deck while the 
steamer whirled down the Jennings Canon, the agent 
stated that his rate would be twenty-five per cent, of 
the cargo. The daring captain decided to take the 
risk himself. He had made a number of trips with 
entire success and immense profit. But just at the 
height of the season, when the twenty-six cars were 
on the track and a sack full of gold was waiting for 
him, the captain got into too much of a hurry. He 
was running the Gwendoline; one of his best pilots, 
the Ruth. The Ruth was ahead. Both were making 
their best possible time down the canon to get a cargo. 
Captain Armstrong, at the wheel of the Gwendoline, 
was whizzing down the canon at a rate which made 
stopping impossible, when to his dismay he saw the 
Ruth right ahead of him in a narrow turn, lying across 
the channel, wedged in the rocks. To stop was im- 
possible. To select any comfortable landing-place 
was equally so. The Gwendoline piled right on top 
of the Ruth. Both were total wrecks, without a dollar 
of insurance. A two-thousand-dollar cargo gone in 
five minutes, to say nothing of boats and business that 
could not be replaced and a fortune within grasp that 
would never be so near again. 

But such were the risks of steamboating on the 
Kootenai. 

There are two historical notes of special interest to 
be made in connection with the journey to Windermere. 
One of these is a prehistoric drawing in some kind of 
red pigment on the smooth surface of a rock on the 
upper Columbia Lake. It seems to represent a battle 
scene, and, though rude, denotes some conception of 



292 The Columbia River 

picture art. The Indians think that it was made prior 
to Indian times. Apparently it belongs to the same 
order of pictures as the drawings on the rocks of Lake 
Chelan and other places in the north-west, furnishing 
a worthy theme for the antiquarian. 

The other object of historical interest is the remains 
of the temporary fort built by David Thompson of 
the North-west Fur Company in 1810. Thompson 
crossed the Rockies in that year in order to descend 
the Columbia and gain possession of its territory for 
his fur company. He was a brave, intelligent, and 
enterprising man with considerable knowledge of as- 
tronomy. But he waited one season too long. For, 
finding it late in the year 1810 when he had reached 
the sources of the Columbia, he decided to winter 
there and descend the River in the spring. He se- 
lected a beautiful spot capable of defence on all sides 
on Lake Windermere and there built a rude fort, the 
trench and mound of which still remain. In the 
spring of 1811 he went down the river (and this was 
the first party to traverse the entire course of the Colum- 
bia) full of hope that he might take possession for 
Great Britain and the North-westers, only to find that 
the Astor party of Americans had preceded them by 
three months in effecting what might be called per- 
manent occupation. 

This was one of the important links in the history 
of the control of the North-west. Doubt has been 
raised as to the authenticity of this Windermere 
location, but there are certainly the remains of mound 
and trench, and the tradition has it that here was the 
place of the Thompson party, the first White men on 
the Upper Columbia. 



In the Heart of the Canadian Rockies 293 

An interesting character hves on the shore of Lake 
Windermere in the person of Baptiste Morigeau. 
He is an elderly man, the son of a French father and 
an Indian mother. The father, Francis Morigeau, 
was born at Quebec in 1797, and came to the upper 
Columbia region as a free trapper in 1820. He 
trapped up and down the Columbia for many years, 
selling his catches to the Hudson's Bay Company, 
usually at Fort Colville. Baptiste was born at 
Windermere in 1842. Three years after that the 
father with his numerous family went to Colville. He 
had a number of horses and cattle, a large supply of 
valuable furs, ammunition, and traps. He located at 
Colville at just the right time. For, having taken 
up a large body of the rich land in that valley, he 
began raising hay and grain. His stock increased. 
He was surrounded with every species of rude plenty, 
and just at the most profitable time for him the gold 
discoveries began in 1854, followed the next year by 
the great Indian war. The fat cattle, the horses, the 
grain, hay, and vegetables of the Morigeaus were in 
great and immediate demand. Money came in to them 
by the handful. Baptiste states that they took in 
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars during the five 
years of Indian wars and settlement. Their lives were 
often in peril, but with good fortune, aided by their 
own connection with the natives, they escaped any 
serious harm. 

On one occasion Indians were about to plunder 
them of their valuables and take possession of the 
barn where several of the family were thrashing grain 
with flails, when the oldest son, Aleck, suddenly 
turned his flail upon the marauders. So vigorously 



294 The Columbia River 

did he lay about him and so astonished were the In- 
dians at the novel assault that they gave way and 
retreated. 

Morigeau told us the interesting fact that there 
were practically no Indians living in the Windermere 
district until about a century ago. At that time some 
branches of the Shuswaps and of the Kootenais came 
in. Their relations were usually very amicable, but 
between the Shuswaps and the Okanogans was deadly 
and long-continued enmity. This was ended in a 
curious and interesting manner by the following 
event. The Shuswaps had captured the only daughter 
of the Okanogan chief. She was led with other cap- 
tives into the Shuswap camp. The boasting warriors 
were gloating over the poor victim, and the squaws 
were discussing the greatest possible indignities and 
tortures for her, when an aged, white-haired chief got 
the attention of the crowd. He declared that his 
heart had been opened, and that he now saw that 
torture and death ought to end. He proposed that 
instead of shame and torture they should confer 
honour on the chieftain's child. He said : " I can 
hear the old chief and his squaw weeping all the night 
for their lost daughter." He then proposed that they 
adorn the captive with flowers, put her in a j)roces- 
sion, with all the chiefs loaded with presents, and 
restore her to her father. 

The girl meanwhile, who did not understand a 
word of the language, was awaiting torture or death. 
What was her astonishment to find herself decorated 
with honour, and sent with the gift-laden chiefs 
toward her father's camp. On the next daj^ the 
mourning chief of the Okanogans and his wife, looking 



In the Heart of the Canadian Rockies 295 

from their desolate lodge, saw a large procession ap- 
proaching, and they said : " They are coming to 
demand a ransom." 

As the procession drew nearer, one of their men 
said that it looked like a woman adorned with flowers 
in the midst of the men with presents of robes and 
necklaces. Then they cried out : " It is our child, and 
she is restored to us." So they met the procession 
with rejoicing and heard the speech of the old Shuswap 
chief. And after that there was peace between the 
Shuswaps and the Okanogans. 

Having returned from Lake Windermere to 
Golden by small boat, — one of the most charming of 
all water trips, — we are prepared to make a new start 
down the River. 

The River from Golden holds a general north- 
westerly course to its highest northern point in lati- 
tude 52 degrees. There having received its northmost 
tributary, Canoe River, a furious mountain stream, it 
makes a grand wheel southward, forming what is 
known as the Big Bend. This section of the River 
was navigated by the bateaux of the trappers and the 
canoes of the Indians. There are, however, several 
bad rapids, of which Surprise Rapids, Kimbasket 
Rapids, and Death Rapids, are the worst. These 
cannot be passed by steamboats. The voyageurs 
seem to have run them sometimes, though they ordi- 
narily made portages. A Golden steamboat captain 
assures us that none but fools ever ran Death Rapids, 
— and they were mostly drowned. 

The Canadian Pacific Railroad follows the Colum- 
bia from Golden to Beavermouth, then turns up the 
Beaver to cross the Selkirk Mountains. The Beaver 



296 The Columbia River 

is a magnificent mountain stream, and from the rail- 
road, high on the mountain side, the traveller can at 
many points look down hundreds of feet upon the river. 
Though the Selkirks are not quite so high as the main 
chain of the Rockies, they are even grander. The 
snowfall is materially greater in the Selkirks, and the 
glaciers are vast in extent. It is said that the snow- 
fall at Glacier averages thirty-five feet during the 
winter, and that it lies from four to eight feet deep 
from October to April. There are thirty immense 
snowsheds on this section of the railroad. 

Glacier is the great resort in the Selkirks. This 
splendid resort has attractions in some respects su- 
perior to those of Banff, Lake Louise, or Field. It 
is in the very heart of the Selkirks. The Great 
Glacier is only a mile and a half distant, a glacier 
which is said to cover an area of thirty square 
miles. From the watch tower at Glacier, this mass 
of ice, twisted and contorted, with all the colours of 
the rainbow playing upon it, is one of those visions 
of elemental force which only great mountains reveal. 
Like all the glaciers of the Northern Hemisphere, this 
is receding at a rapid rate. A record on the rock 
indicates the point to which the ice attained in July, 
1887, and the ice is now over seven hundred feet 
distant from that point. 

The Asulkan Glacier is a more beautiful sight, as 
viewed from Abbott rampart, than the Great Glacier. 
Every traveller should climb the trail to Abbott in 
order to get that sight. And with it he will view 
the twin peaks of Castor and Pollux yet farther 
south, while to the north the splendid peaks of Cheops, 



In the Heart of the Canadian Rockies 297 

Hermit, and Cougar dominate the majestic wilderness. 

But the most striking single sight is the granite 
monolith of Sir Donald. This is almost a counterpart 
of the ^Matterhorn of Switzerland, though not so high. 
It rises in one huge block to a height of 10,808 feet. It 
has been climbed, though this is one of the most daring 
and difficult of climbs. From the dizzy spire there is 
visible a perfect map of peaks, rivers, valleys, and 
lakes. It is said that a hundred and twenty glaciers 
can be seen. 

From Sir Donald and the Great Glacier issues 
the Illecillewaet River, well-named, for this means the 
" swift flowing." From its source in the Great 
Glacier to its entrance of the Columbia it descends 
thirty-five hundred feet in forty-five miles. It is 
swift. One of the most interesting places on this sec- 
tion of the road is the " Loops," a place where the 
track has to descend five hundred and twenty-two feet 
in seven miles. To accomplish this, it has been 
carried in a " double S " around the base of Mt. 
Ross. So close are the tracks that the two parts of 
the loop a mile in length are not more than eighty 
feet apart, one being almost perpendicularly above 
the other. Some miles farther down is the Albert 
Canon on the Illecillewaet. On this point the dis- 
tinction has been conferred of a complete pause of 
the train, while from it the passengers hasten to a 
platform to gaze down the perpendicular walls three 
hundred feet to the white torrent tearing its way 
through the rock. 

Soon Revelstoke is reached, and we are again on 
the navigable waters of the Columbia. Every traveller, 
as he leaves the line of the Canadian Pacific Rail- 



298 The Columbia River 

road, must pay his tribute of respect to the skill, 
energy, and intelligence with which this superb road is 
conducted. It has been said that English money 
supplied this road, Scotch energy built it, and Irish 
keenness and adaptability run it. Sir Thomas 
Shaughnessey, the manager, is certainly entitled to the 
respect and gratitude of thousands of tourists. 

With the railroad, all tourists will associate the 
Canadian Park managers. The Canadian Govern- 
ment is a singularly intelligent one. It has grasped 
the possibilities in these vast and varied scenic charms, 
and has used exceedingly good judgment in render- 
ing them accessible to the travelling public. This 
entire mountain area bordering the railroad, to an 
extent of five thousand seven hundred and thirty-two 
square miles, has been set apart as a park, in charge 
of the Department of the Interior. Superb roads 
are constructed in available places, and improvements 
are continually in progress about the springs and 
falls and lakes and other points of interest. The 
Government, in fact, exercises entire control, but 
grants concessions to the railroad company in the 
matter of hotels and other conveniences. 

As we bid good-bye to the Canadian Rockies, we 
may say that perhaps the world offers nowhere else 
such a sea of mountains, such knots and clusters and 
cordons of elevations, as in this strange and sublime 
region where the Columbia and its tributaries, the 
Kootenai, the Illecillewaet, the Wapta, the Beaver, 
the Canoe, seem to be playing hide-and-seek with the 
Thompson and the Fraser. There are not less than 
five distinct snowy ridges between the head waters of 
the Saskatchewan and the Pacific Ocean. The exist- 




Fish River Road, in Upper Columbia Region, B. C. 
Photo, by Trueman, Victoria. 



In the Heart of the Canadian Rockies 299 

ence of this immense watershed of snowy mountains 
accounts for the vast volume of the Columbia. Al- 
though not half as long as the Mississippi, the Colum- 
bia equals it in volume. 

Well joined, in truth, are the sublime River and 
the sublime mountains. One cannot fully understand 
the River unless he has seen its cradle and the cradle 
of its affluents beneath the shadows of the great peaks 
of British Columbia. 



CHAPTER II 

The Lakes from the Arrow Lakes to Chelan 

The Lake Plateau — The Glacial Origin of the Lakes — Down the Ar- 
row Lakes from Revelstoke — The Fine Steamers — Characteristics 
of the Scenery — By Rail from Robson to Nelson — Agincultural, 
Mineral, and Lumbering Resources around Nelson — Kootenai 
Lake and its Charms — On the River from Robson to Kettle Falls 
— Historic Features around Kettle Falls — On Lakes Coeur d'Alene, 
Pend Oreille, and Kaniksu in Northern Idaho — From Kettle Falls 
to Chelan — Appearance of Chelan River — First View of the 
Lake — Delights of a Boat Ride up the Lake — Comparison of 
Chelan with other Great Scenes — Storm on the Lake — Goat 
Mountain — Views from Railroad Creek — The Red Drawings — 
Rainbow Falls and Stehekin Caiion — The Wrecked Cabin and its 
Story — Railroad Creek and North Star Park — Cloudy Pass and 
Glacier Peak. 

IN the progress of our journey down the River on the 
route of the old-time fur brigades, we have passed 
over what may be considered the first two stages 
of the stream. The first is the lagoon-Hke expanse of 
the section from Canal Flats to Golden, one hundred 
and fifty miles. The second is the more swift and 
turbulent part from Golden to Revelstoke, two hun- 
dred and fifty miles. At the latter place we enter 
upon a third stage of the River, the lake stage. 

The region of the lakes constitutes one of the most 
unique and delightful of all parts of the River. Let 
the reader consult the map and he will find an area 
of probably one hundred thousand square miles in 
British Columbia, Washington, Idaho, and Mon- 
tana filled with lakes. This lake region constitutes 

300 



The Lakes from Arrow Lakes to Chelan 301 

a plateau, crossed indeed by mountains and some- 
what rough in surface, but of a uniform general 
elevation. It constitutes a sort of debatable region 
between the two great slopes, one from the Rocky 
summits to the lakes and tlie other from the lakes to 
tide-water. On those slopes the white waters of cata- 
ract and rapid are found; on the plateau, the deep, 
still lakes. A glance at the map reveals the fact that 
the larger of these lakes are long and narrow, and 
lie on north and south lines. A journey on them re- 
veals the fact that they are deep and clear and cold. 
Join these facts with the additional one that they are 
surrounded by snowy mountains, and you have no 
difficulty in deciding their origin. They are glacial. 
At some time in the glacial ages, stupendous plough- 
shares of ice descending from Rockies, Selkirks, Gold 
Range, Cascades, and Bitter Roots, gouged out pro- 
found canons in the rents already wrought by earth- 
quakes, and these became the lake beds. 

Each one of the branches of the River in this 
plateau region has one or more of these expansions. 
On the Columbia itself are the Arrow Lakes. Koote- 
nai Lake is an enlargement of the River of the same 
name. Okanogan Lake is likewise an expansion of 
its river. Christina Lake is the source of Kettle 
River. The Slocan River derives its icy torrents 
from Slocan Lake. Flathead, Kaniksu, and Pend 
Oreille lakes feed Clark's Fork, now more commonly 
known in its lower section as Pend Oreille River. 
Coeur d'Alene Lake supplies the Spokane River. 
Chelan pours its cold flood into the Columbia through 
a river of the same sweet sounding name. Wenatchee 
Lake gives life to the Wenatchee River. 



302 The Columbia River 

We find at Revelstoke that the chief current of tour- 
ist travel follows the main line of the Canadian Pacific 
Railroad. Nevertheless, there is a rapidly increasing 
movement of travellers on the branch by steamboat over 
the Arrow Lakes and the Kootenai to what is known 
as the Crow's Nest line from Spokane to Calgary, 
Winnipeg, and other points east. 

The Canadian Pacific line has excellent steamers, 
the Rossland, the Kootenai^ the Kaslo, the Kuska- 
nook, and others of similar grade. The journey on 
the Rossland or Kootenai down the Arrow Lakes 
from Arrowhead to Robson is one to dream of, one 
to recall in waking hours, and even, we almost suspect, 
in another life. The two lakes together constitute one 
hundred and thirty miles of steamboating, and every 
mile has its special charm. It was the peculiar joy of 
the voyageurs, after having toiled over the snowy and 
wind-swept Athabasca Pass and buffeted the foamy 
descent of Death Rapids, to reach the Arrow Lakes 
and lazily paddle down their tranquil deeps. In fact, 
pleasant as is our journey on the Rossland, we would 
rather reconstruct the bateaux of 1840 and in them 
make the whole long journey to the sea, a thousand 
miles away. 

The traveller learns from the captain, if he can 
persuade that busy personage to indulge in conversa- 
tion, that the Arrow Lakes derived their name from 
the fact that in early times great bundles of arrows 
could be seen stuck in the clay banks or in the crev- 
ices of the rocks at the head of the upper lake. The 
upper Arrow Lake has mountain banks rising thou- 
sands of feet to the zone of eternal snow. The shores 
are usually precipitous, though it is not uncommon to 




^ '■< 






ct 

fc 






The Lakes from Arrow Lakes to Chelan 303 

see smooth slopes furnishing timbered margins to en- 
chanting little bays. At various places along the 
shores we see the beginnings of fruit and dairy ranches. 
It is only within a score of years that anything has 
been done here in the way of cultivation. The re- 
sults thus far attained prove the wonderful adap- 
tability of soil and climate to choice fruits. And 
the flowers, — Heaven bless them! — the sweetest and 
biggest and brightest of roses, pinks, sweet peas, 
larkspurs, — every kind that grows, are seen in pro- 
fusion at almost every point where there has been any 
cultivation. By a little conversation with people at 
the landings we learn that the new-fledged ranches 
are very profitable. One tells us that he has made a 
net profit of two dollars and twenty-five cents per 
crate on his strawberries, or five hundred dollars an 
acre. 

Perhaps the most attractive place on the Arrow 
Lakes is the point where the upper lake narrows 
into the stretch of fifteen miles of river joining the 
two lakes. The mountains on either hand, in great 
billows of forest green and blue, rise ever upward till 
they break against the eternal frost. The shores are 
clothed in dense forests, and on either hand bold pro- 
montories enclose sheltered bays, the very beau ideals 
of camping places. 

We find the lower Arrow Lake of a gentler type 
of scenery than the upper. The mountains no longer 
bear snow-peaks and glaciers on their crests, and there 
are no longer to be seen the stupendous rocky walls 
which in places enclose the upper lake. But as a 
compensation for the loss of this pre-eminent grandeur, 
the lower lake possesses a charm of colouring, both of 



304 The Columbia River 

water and shore, a richness of mountain outline and 
tints, and a certain serenity which may well make it 
an equal of its grander companion. 

At the lower end of the Arrow Lakes the steamer 
stops and transfers her freight and passengers to the 
trains running from Robson to Nelson. This is 
necessitated by the fact that the Kootenai River, 
which enters the Columbia just below Robson, has a 
descent from Nelson of over two hundred feet. The 
railroad follows the Kootenai, which almost rivals the 
Columbia in magnitude. We pass the Bonnington 
Falls, the noblest waterfall on the entire system of 
Columbia's tributaries, with the exception of the Great 
Shoshone of the Snake. 

Reaching Nelson, the metropolis of this entire lake 
country, we find a bustling, active, well-built little 
city of seven thousand people. The leading industries 
centring at Nelson are mining and lumbering. It has 
been discovered very recently, however, that the soil 
and air and climate are peculiarly adapted to choice 
berries and fruits. The shores of the river and lake 
at this point are rugged and rocky, at first thought 
ill adapted to horticulture. But it is well known that 
rough locations produce choicer fruit. Between the 
boulders or nestling against the hillsides, the peach 
and apple take on an added blush, absorb a more 
delicate nectar, exhale a more exquisite perfume. We 
are told that during the season of 1908 there were 
twenty thousand crates of berries, mainly straw- 
berries, shipped from Nelson, at a price of two to 
three dollars per crate. 

In every direction from Nelson is mineral wealth 
of untold quantity. Almost every mineral known, 



The Lakes from Arrow Lakes to Chelan 305 

gold, silver, copper, zinc, lead, to say nothing of every 
kind of fine building stone, including marble, besides 
coal and iron, is found east, west, north, and south of 
Nelson. The town itself was founded by reason of 
the Silver King mine, which can be seen high up on 
the mountain side south of the place. The output of 
these mines has been immense. In spite of the com- 
paratively hard times, the output of the three dis- 
tricts of the Kootenai, Rossland, and Boundary, was 
estimated at $21,025,500 in 1907. One interesting fact 
connected with the mining industry in the lake coun- 
try is that at Nelson is located an electric zinc smelter, 
the only one of the kind in the world. Zinc is found 
in association with gold, silver, and copper, and, though 
valuable, is quite an impediment to the mining of the 
gold and silver. This unique smelter works by what 
is called the Snyder process, an electrical system, 
which, if it accomplishes all that is hoped for, will 
open every mine on the Kootenai. 

From Nelson we find the way open by fine 
steamers to all parts of the Kootenai. This largest 
of all the lakes of the Columbia system, containing 
141,120 acres of surface, bears a general resemblance 
to the Arrow Lakes, clear, deep, cold, with lofty 
mountains on either side and vast stretches of purple 
forests crowding to the very margin of the water. 
This lake consists of three arms, northern, southern, 
and western. The Kootenai River enters by the 
southern and leaves by the western. 

The northern part of the Kootenai region, especially 
around Kaslo, possesses vast mineral wealth. A rail- 
road proceeds from Kaslo to Sandon in the heart of 
the mountains, and to Slocan Lake and thence to 



3o6 The Columbia River 

Nakusp on the upper Arrow Lake. The scenery of 
Slocan Lake is even more wild and rugged than that 
of the Kootenai. Both abound in fine trout. We 
saw a lake trout at Nelson of a weight of twenty-two 
pounds. Ducks and geese and swan are common on 
the water, limitless grouse and pheasants are found 
in the woods, while deer, elk, and bear are common 
in the wild maze of mountains and canons; — a sports- 
man's paradise. 

Tourists taking the route eastward go from Nelson 
on the elegant steamer Kuskanook to Kootenai Land- 
ing and there take up again the railway route by the 
Crow's Nest. Such as desire to go to Spokane can 
leave the line at Curzon and go southward to a con- 
nection with the Spokane International. There is 
also a rail connection more directly between Nelson 
and Spokane by the Spokane and Northern. This 
pursues more nearly the course of the Columbia River, 
of which the traveller obtains delightful glimpses at 
intervals. But for ourselves, we would rather go by 
rowboat from Robson down the River over the his- 
torical route of the old voyageurs. No rail route 
compares with the water. 

The River is a superb water-way from Robson, 
British Columbia, to Kettle Falls, Washington, about 
ninety miles. In fact, the section of the River from 
Death Rapids above Revelstoke to Kettle Falls, in- 
cluding the Arrow Lakes, is the longest unbroken 
stretch of deep, still water on the entire River, being 
about three hundred miles. 

Kettle Falls, too, is a historic spot. For here was 
Fort Colville of the Americans and also the old Hud- 
son's Bay post. Here was the greatest centring of 




Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho 
Photo by T. AV. Tolman. 




Lake Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. 
Photo, by T. W. Tohnan. 



The Lakes from Arrow Lakes to Chelan 



30: 



the fur-trade on the upper River. Here were the 
strongest of all the Catholic missions, and here were 
the most fertile fields and the earliest cultivated of any 
on the upper River. Here is the Colville Indian 
Reservation, and here for many years the wily and 
untamable old savage JNIoses herded his bands of 
" cuitans," watched the incoming whites with jealous 
eye, and, as opportunity offered, made way with such 
wandering prospectors or stockmen as he could find 
off their guard in rocky glen or forest depth. (And 
none ever knew what became of them.) Here Halla- 
kallakeen (Eagle Wing) the great Nez Perce chief, 
commonly known as Joseph, who waged the Wallowa 
War of 1877 to its bitter conclusion, carried on the 
sad remnant of his days, and not far distant on the 
wild Nespilem, he held his summer camp. In all di- 
rections around Colville and Kettle Falls, up the Sans 
Foil and Kettle rivers, are opening mines and farms, 
one of the most promising sections of all the promising 
State of Washington. 

Time forbids us to visit all the lakes in this wonder- 
ful lake section. But we must see the most important. 
While at Spokane, we should not fail to go, by trolley 
or train or auto or horseback, to the greatest of all 
Spokane resorts, Coeur d'Alene Lake. Of its beauties 
and delights, and of the " shadowy St. Joe River," 
and of the canoeing and fishing and hunting which 
may be found there galore, some of our pictures speak. 
And of them any one who has ever been there will 
also speak in no uncertain tone. It seems no whit 
short of the unpardonable sin to give no longer space 
to that wonderland of lakes, Coeur dAlene, Fend 
Oreille, and Kaniksu, in Northern Idaho, each the 



3o8 The Columbia River 

centre of every conceivable scenic attraction. In their 
near vicinity, too, lie the great mines of the Coeur 
d'Alene district, the greatest silver lead mines in the 
world, whose fabulous wealth (forty million dollars a 
year) has built many a stone mansion at Spokane, or 
sent the prospectors of yesterday to the ends of the 
earth for the pleasure or display of to-day. But the 
limits of this chapter forbid description of these 
masterpieces. Though each lake has its individual 
character, there is a general similarity. All have the 
characteristics of their- common glacial origin and 
mountainous surroundings. 

We may therefore make one visit and give de- 
scriptions of the one great inclusive scene or group 
of scenes which may be said to express the beauty, 
the sublimity, the wonder of the lakes of the 
Columbia River. And this one typical lake, the all- 
inclusive, is Chelan, " Beautiful Water." 

True to our purpose of following the River from 
source to sea, we turn back now from Spokane in 
order to go from Kettle Falls to Chelan by boat. 
There are no regular steamboats running from Kettle 
Falls to Brewster at the mouth of the Okanogan, but 
from the last named point to Wenatchee the steam- 
boat is the regular and indeed only means of public 
travel. Throughout the entire course of two hundred 
miles from Kettle Falls to Wenatchee the river is 
wild and swift. Yet steamers have traversed almost 
the entire distance, and Government engineers are now 
engaged in surveys looking to improvements such as 
will make steamboat traffic easy and profitable. We 
pass numberless points of interest, but " Chelan, Che- 
lan," " Beautiful Water, Beautiful Water," is our goal. 




c 






4^ P- 



_i: C 

■J) -P 



The Lakes from Arrow Lakes to Chelan 309 

We had thought that the Columbia was clear, but 
we did not then know^ what clear water really was. 
When we reach the mouth of Chelan River we know. 
We see a streak of blue cutting right across the im- 
petuous downflow of the River. As we push our way 
into it we discover that it is so clear as to make little 
more obstruction to the view of rocks and fish below 
than does the air itself. This transparent torrent is 
the outlet of the lake. It is only four miles long 
and descends three hundred and eighty feet in that 
distance. It furnishes one hundred and twenty-five 
thousand horse-power at low water. The canon, riven 
and tortured, through which it descends, is a fitting 
approach to the lake, unique Chelan. For having 
traversed the four miles, we find the lake out- 
stretched before us. 

At this first view the lake has that look of a serene 
obliviousness to the flight of passing centuries, that 
impressure of eternity, that belongs to all great works 
of God or man. But majestic as is the view at the 
lower end of the lake, we are not content to remain 
there. "Neshika Klatawa sahale" cry we with a 
single voice, which being interpreted is, " Let us go 
up higher," the motto, by the way, of our JNIazama 
(JMountain-Climbers') Club of the Pacific North-west. 
In skiffs, well-laden with provisions and ammunition, 
we set forth on our sixty-mile pull toward " where the 
spectral glaciers shone." 

Delightful, delightful, almost ecstatic in truth, this 
rocking on the glassy swell; this bed of aromatic 
spruce and pine boughs on the beach; this star-lit sky 
which is our only roof; this murmur of cascades fall- 
ing from the bluffs; this trolling for five-pound trout; 



3IO The Columbia River 

this disemharking on some rocky point and cHmbing 
a granite pinnacle from which a perfect maze of 
mountains, streams, and forests, lies extended below; 
this experience of the deadly attack of " buck-ague " 
which paralyses our arms as some goat or deer dashes 
by; and then the inexpressible delight with which we, 
" stepping down by zigzag paths and juts of pointed 
rock, came on the shining levels of the lake." We 
do not wish to hurry our oars. We must take time to 
look into the heavenly blue of the waters through the 
foam-streaks left by our advancing prows. We must 
suspend the oar-dip entirely at times while we gaze 
dizzied, with strained necks, up, up, thousands of 
feet, toward " Death and Morning on the Silver- 
horns." We must study shore and water as we pass 
slowly by, finding therein ample confirmation of the 
theory of glacial origin. 

This is one of the deepest canons on earth. Not 
such another furrow has Time wrought on the face of 
the Western Hemisphere, at least. At some points the 
granite walls rise almost verticallj^ six thousand feet 
from the water's edge. Here, too, soundings of 
seventeen hundred feet have been necessary to touch 
bottom. Over a mile and a half of verticality! This 
surpasses in depth Yosemite, Yellowstone, Columbia, 
or even Colorado Canon. As compared with those 
more familiar wonders, Chelan lacks the incomparable 
symmetry and completeness of Yosemite; it has not 
such a multitude of waterfalls and groups of " castled 
crags " as are seen within the basaltic gates of the 
Columbia; it does not display that variety of colour- 
ing, especially of the lighter and warmer hues, which 
astonishes the beholder of the Colorado or the Yellow- 




o 






3 
o 

o 



The Lakes from Arrow Lakes to Chelan 311 

stone, and it has no especially curious feature like the 
geysers of the last; but for immensity, for a certain 
chaotic sublimity, for the rich and sombre grandeur of 
the purple and garnet, dusky, and indigo-tinted shore 
views, Chelan surpasses any of the others, while in 
its water views, — such colourings and such blendings, 
light-green, ultramarine, lapis lazuli, violet, indigo, 
almost black, — such light and shade, " sea of glass 
mingled with fire," where every cloud in the chang- 
ing sky and all the untold majesty of the hills find 
their perfect mirror, all hues and forms, a kaleidoscope 
of earth and heaven, beyond imagination to conceive 
or pen to describe or brush to portray, — in all this, 
Chelan is without a rival. 

As ^ve round a shaggy promontory, there the snow- 
peaks stand in battle array, azure, purple, amethystine, 
with lines and masses of glistening white, flushed on 
their topmost pinnacles with rosy light from the west- 
ering sun, solemn, solitary, very oracles of mountain 
revelation, so grand, so beautiful, so true, looking as 
though they had been there forever waiting for an 
interpreter, — before that scene we bow the head and 
make involuntary obeisance, the homage of the true 
in man to the true in nature, that is, the recognition 
of a common brotherhood in one divine origin. 

Not of every scene on this lake of wonders can we 
speak. Yet every mile brought its special revelation. 
Sometimes we found the lake in storms. As we 
rowed in what seemed a summer calm, Winter from 
his throne eight thousand feet above sent forth 
his cloud-legions, which, like the " thunder birds " of 
Indian storj^ spread their wings and came down. 
The thunder clash went echoing in long reverbera- 



312 The Columbia River 

tions " from peak to peak, the ratthng crags among." 
" If a squall ever strikes you, put for the first crack 
in the bank that you see," had been the parting in- 
junction of the lake sailors when we started on our 
cruise. We observed the warning and made the best 
possible time to a cranny in the ill-omened " Windy 
Cape." And there we lay till morning, when the 
tumult fell as suddenly as it rose, and lake and sky 
smiled as serenely at each other as ever. 

The chief point on the lake, for photographing, 
hunting, fishing, and climbing, is Raih'oad Creek, 
fifty miles up the lake. Railroad Creek comes from 
the " Roof of the World," having its source in the 
very heart of a great group of glaciers. It descends 
probably six thousand feet in twenty-five miles. It 
is swift! The fury with which it hurls logs and even 
boulders down its cataract bed is fairly appalling. 
The very earth quivers beneath its flail-like strokes. 

Nowhere, perhaps, can one see more work done by 
rivers than here. The entire course of one of these 
rivers can be traced from the lake. Rising in a snow 
bank six thousand feet above, its route m.arked by a 
streak of foam, sometimes falling in spray hundreds 
of feet, then hiding behind a cliff, to burst forth in 
snow-white " chute," augmented by similar streams 
from lateral canons, it plunges into the lake with a 
perfect delirium of motion. So great is the erosion 
that were not the lake of enormous depth, it would 
soon be filled with the jetsam and flotsam of the 
hifls. 

The sunset effects looking up the lake from Rail- 
road Creek are marvellous, though, alas, the cool black 
and white of the photograph cannot preserve the 




Gorge of Chelan River, the Outlet of Lake Chelan. 
Photo, by T. W. Tolman, Spokane. 



The Lakes from Arrow Lakes to Chelan 313 

wealth of colouring, " the illumination of all gems," 
which for a few transcendent moments fills the 
mighty canon " bank-full " with such radiance that one 
might think it the grand gathering place of all the 
rainbows of earth. The light greens and blues of 
the shallower water shade into deepest indigo toward 
the centre, reflecting the ever-changing hues of the 
canon walls, a deep, rich, and sombre purple on the 
shaded side, while on the sun-lit side are poured forth 
upon the shaggy mountain slopes perfect inundations 
of orange, carmine, and saffron. From these floods 
of glory there falls into the lake a seeming rain of 
pearls and rubies, barred with stripes of gold and 
crimson. But the sun drops lower and the splendour 
fades, the conflagration of the sky is quenched, and 
it seems as though ten thousand ships, " all decked 
with funeral scarfs from stem to stern," were putting 
out from the glooming western shores, strewing 
darkness as they move, — and night is at hand. 

Like all travellers to Lake Chelan, we must make 
a journey to the head of the lake, to the Stehekin 
River, and to Rainbow Falls. The view up the canon 
of the Stehekin is the crowning glory of this pano- 
rama of sublimities. A forest of almost tropical 
luxuriance covers the morass through which the im- 
petuous river makes its way. On either side tower 
the canon walls, capped with snow. The background 
consists of glittering pinnacles of some of the Glacier 
Range. JNIajesty, might, elemental force, eternity, — 
such are the only words to express the emotions 
excited by this scene. 

One curious thing to be seen at the mouth of the 
Stehekin, and at several other places on the lake is a 



314 The Columbia River 

series of rude drawings on the smooth, white surface 
of the granite bluff, the work of some prehistoric 
artist, unknown to the Indians, and of so ancient 
date that the lake is now twenty feet below their 
level. The drawings are of men, goats, tents, and 
trees, and are in strong red colours, of some very en- 
during nature. One is ashamed to record that alleged 
human beings in the form of white tourists have used 
these curious relics of bygone days as targets to shoot 
at from their boats, and have ruined some of the 
finest. Also that some vandal has desecrated the 
place by painting a glaring advertisement of his ferry 
underneath. 

Although it may well seem to the tourist who 
has attained the head of Lake Chelan that nature has 
reached her acme of grandeur, and that it would tax 
his powers of belief to be informed that there is 
grander yet, we shall run the risk of saying just that, 
and bid him join us on side journeys up the mighty 
canons of the Stehekin River and Railroad Creek. 
Lake Chelan being, as already indicated, in the very 
heart of the Cascade Mountains, and these mountains 
here attaining an average elevation of seven or eight 
thousand feet, with dozens of peaks of nine thousand or 
more, and the countless impetuous streams from those 
snowy heights having cut their way deep down toward 
the lake level, it follows as a matter of course that 
the entire Chelan region, for an area of probably five 
thousand square miles, is perfectly gridironed with 
canons. Many of them have never been explored or 
even entered. In them are myriads of lakes, water- 
falls, parks, glaciers, and, in fact, every species of 
mountain attraction. There is no question that within 



The Lakes from Arrow Lakes to Chelan 315 

this vast cordon of mountains there are more glaciers 
than in all the rest of the United States combined, 
and, with the exception of the Sierras and the Cana- 
dian Rockies, there is certainly no other region on 
this continent that can for a moment enter into com- 
petition with it. Travellers have assured the author 
that the Alps in no respect except historical asso- 
ciation, surpass, and some say, do not equal this 
crowning glory of our great North-west State. 

Amid the bewildering profusion of great canons 
radiating from the lake, the two most accessible are 
those of the Stehekin River and Railroad Creek. The 
former enters the head of the lake, after a course of 
probably fifty miles from Skagit Pass. To ascend this 
canon we must commit our lives and fortunes to cay- 
use ponies and a mountain trail, which, though good 
enough to the initiated, is a terror to the " tenderfoot." 

Four miles up the Stehekin we reach Rainbow 
Falls, heralded by distant gusts and eddies of mist, 
which at first seem to be from woods on fire. But 
a dull roar, a harsh rumble, then a lighter splash, — 
and we see that what at first had seemed smoke eddy- 
ing out of the canon wall is the mist driven before 
the gusts created by the falling torrents. With a 
few more hurried steps we find ourselves before a fall 
three hundred and fifty feet high. Its clouds of 
spray swirl like a thunder-shower, drenching the rocks 
and trees far around. Picking our way amid the 
pelting mist to the top of a slippery hillock from 
which we can look right down into the very heart of 
the fall, we see, swinging against the mist, a perfect 
rainbow, a complete double circle, a blaze of lustre. 
The thrilling roar deepens as we hang over the 



3i6 The Columbia River 

slippery verge, and sounds like voices, trampling of 
armies, clatter of innumerable hoofs, rattling of ar- 
tiller}^, all the grandeur and frenzy of conflict, seem 
to rise from that wild gorge. Now the mist eddies 
forth and blurs the vision, and then falls back, and 
that dazzling bow hangs there unmarred. The bridge 
of Iris or Heimdall, we say, — but no; it is no more 
a bridge, it is a perfect circle, the symbol of eternity. 
The symbol also of peace, for eternity is peace. That 
mist-hung bow becomes to us an emblem of the har- 
mony of all jarring sounds and discordant forces. And 
so with that bow of peace swaying behind us, and the 
deep thunder fading in musical diminuendo, we pass 
on to the next wonder; and this is not far, for every 
mile brings its special revelation. 

Time forbids that w^e pause for more than one 
added scene on the Stehekin, and this is the Horse- 
shoe Basin, thirty miles up the river. This is in the 
upper canon. Imagine yourself perched upon a granite 
pinnacle, looking possibly a little anxiously for bear 
in the thick copses at its bases, for this is said to be 
the greatest bear region in the country, but soon lift- 
ing your eyes to the heights on either side. Six thou- 
sand feet deep is that stupendous gorge. On the 
south side you see the " castled crags," glacier-crested, 
while on the north, Horseshoe Basin stands revealed. 
A long line of dark-red minarets, at whose foot 
stretches two miles of glistening and twisted ice, then 
below that a great terrace, vivid green with spring 
foliage, and over it falling a perfect symposium of 
waterfalls, if we may be allowed such an expression. 
Twenty-one falls and cataracts all in one view. They 
vary in descent from two hundred to two thousand 



The Lakes from Arrow Lakes to Chelan 317 

feet. Joining at the foot of the terrace in one foam- 
ing torrent the waters of the Basin plunge in one fall 
of two hundred feet, thence pass under a snow tunnel 
and down a rocky chute swept clean by the flood to 
augment the already raging waters of the Stehekin. 
The Horseshoe Basin, though not grander, not so 
sublimely terrible, in fact, as some other scenes in the 
canon, has that indescribable look of perfectness which 
belongs to the immortal works of nature and art. It 
has a symmetry of form and colour beyond any other 
in the entire region. The dark-red minarets which 
form the outer escarpment, ten thousand feet above 
sea-level, form a marvellous contrast and yet harmony 
with the green and blue and white of the glacier and 
the snow-field, and this in turn is margined with the 
deep-green and olive hues of the lower terrace, while 
joining and unifying all is the flashing and opalescent 
splendour of the cataracts. 

At the mouth of the Horseshoe Creek, lodged on 
a little rocky island, is a shattered cabin. We camp 
near this, and while we are engaged in preparing an 
appetising meal of fish and venison, a grizzled pro- 
spector appears coming down the trail. After the 
manner of the mountains, he makes himself at home 
and camps with us for the night. In the course of 
his conversation he narrates many stories of this wild 
region and of the prospecting and hunting adventures 
that have happened in it. Finally he tells us the 
story of the lost cabin, a story that certainly contains 
all the elements of a romance. It appears that some 
years ago two young fellows from the East, cousins, 
had come to the Stehekin to prospect. The old man 
who told us the story was then the only prospector in 



31 8 The Columbia River 

the canon, and he soon made friends with the two 
adventurers. From broken pieces of conversation and 
finally some confidences on the part of one of the boys, 
he learned something of their story. They had been 
bosom friends all their lives, but had fallen in love 
with the same girl. The poor girl, not knowing 
which she did like best, told them that the only thing 
was for both to leave her for two years, and at the 
end of the time she would decide in favour of the one 
that had showed himself the braver and more success- 
ful man. Each kept his destination a perfect secret, 
but to their astonishm.ent, within a month after, they 
found each other in Spokane. They concluded that 
it was the appointment of fate, and so went together 
to the wild country of Chelan, to seek a fortune. 

After they had been there a short time they found 
a mutual distrust springing up, and finally, by the 
advice of the old man, they agreed to separate. 
George was to stay below. He was the more sullen 
and selfish of the two, and it was due to him that 
they had fallen out. Harry was of a frank and 
generous nature, and when it became evident that 
they must part he insisted that he should help build 
a cabin for George. And the cabin that they built 
was the very one that we now saw lodged against the 
rocks. Harry went up the canon toward the Skagit 
Pass, and there in the lonely grandeur of the glaciers 
he plied his pick and shovel. 

A few months later there came a mighty Chinook, 
the warm wind of the Cascades, which strips the peaks 
of snow within a day, transforms the creeks into 
raging torrents, and sends floods down every dry 
gulch. The night after the wind began to blow the 



The Lakes from Arrow Lakes to Chelan 319 

old miner came to George's cabin, and in the intense 
darkness of the cloudy night they listened to the hurt- 
ling of the storm and the roar of the rapidly grow- 
ing river. About midnight there came suddenly a 
succession of rifle shots near at hand, and in a few 
minutes a thunder and roar of water beyond any- 
thing that they had heard. Rushing out they saw that 
the water was already surrounding the cabin and 
they had to run in the darkness for their lives. 
Stumbling among the rocks they reached at last land 
high enough for safety, w^hile the floods w^ent tearing 
by. With the first light they looked out to see that 
the cabin had gone adrift, but sadder to tell, they 
soon found Harry, mangled, tortured, at the point of 
death, just strong enough to tell them that from his 
situation he had seen that a fearful flood was coming 
and he was trying to save George. But he had fallen 
in the darkness and crashed upon the rocks, and even 
in his suffering he had fired his rifle as a warning, 
hoping that it might be heard and save, and so it did. 
And the faithful fellow died content. "We tell the 
tale as it w^as told us." But the poor old wreck of 
a cabin took on something of a new significance as 
it leaned up against the rocks, while the restless river 
sobbed and frothed about it. 

There is great strife among the Chelan people as 
to which is the grander section, the Stehekin or Rail- 
road Creek. As a matter of fact, both are so super- 
latively magnificent that whichever place one is in, 
that he thinks the finer. But there is one feature of 
the case, and this is that the grandest part of Rail- 
road Creek is seldom visited. Few have ever been to 
Glacier Lake, North Star Park, and Cloudy Pass, 



320 The Columbia River 

at the extreme head of the creek, and these are the 
central features of the scenery. They are about 
twenty-five miles from Lake Chelan, and the road 
and trail are mainly good, so that the journey to 
the head of the creek and return can be made very 
comfortably in four days. 

Neither words nor pictures are adequate to con- 
vey any true conception of Glacier Lake and its sur- 
roundings. Imagine a park of four or five thousand 
acres, set with grass and flowers, filled with ice-cold 
streams of water clear as crystal, and dotted here 
and there with trees of the most exquisite beauty. 
On every side except the one down which the creek 
descends, stupendous, glacier-crowned, and pinnacled 
peaks penetrate the blue-black sky at an elevation of 
nearly ten thousand feet. At the south side of the 
park lies Glacier Lake, a mile long and half as wide, 
margined with vivid grass, brilliant flowers, and trees 
of the Alpine type, clear as crystal, unless darkened by 
some sudden scud from the heights. At the southern 
end of the lake is a bold bluff of five hundred feet, 
over which fall the waters of Railroad Creek, a white 
band across the darkness of the bluff. Above may 
be seen the source of this stream. It issues from a 
smaller lake, which lies in the very end of a vast 
glacier, a mass of ice two miles wide and about four 
miles long. 

Passing west of Glacier Lake through the en- 
chanted North Star Park, a veritable land of Beulah 
(at least when the sun is shining), we climb a thou- 
sand or twelve hundred feet higher, and find ourselves 
at one of those thrilling points in the mountains, a 
*' divide." We are on the crest of the Cascade Moun- 




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2 1 

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The Lakes from Arrow Lakes to Chelan 321 

tains. To the east the water flows to Lake Chelan, 
thence to the Columbia, and thence to the Pacific by 
a journey of six hundred miles. To the west the 
water descends through the Sauk and the Skagit to 
Puget Sound, only a hundred and fifty miles away. 
This pass is almost always wrapped in clouds, and 
it is fittingly known as Cloudy Pass. The masses of 
warm vapour rising from the Pacific are hurled against 
the icy crowns of Glacier Peak, JNIt. Nixon, ]Mt. Le 
Conte, North Star Peak, Bonanza Peak, and the rest 
of the wintry brotherhood, most not yet even named, 
and make of them a genuine " patriam nimhoruvif' in 
Virgil's phrase. 

This is the breeding place of tempests. We had 
just reached the pass on one occasion, with a smiling 
sky below, and were just getting our cameras ready 
to catch the westward maze of peaks, when almost 
instantly there began to wheel and whirl above us 
great cloud-masses, seemingly from nowhere, formed 
right there, in fact, and before we had time to think, 
we were wrapped in a furious blizzard. With diffi- 
culty, benumbed, drenched, and exhausted, we managed 
to pick our way to camp, four miles below. This 
was in the early part of August. To be caught in 
a Chelan snowstorm is a serious matter at any time, 
and later in the year, may be all a man's life is worth. 

But the greatest sight, the crowning feature, of 
all this panorama of sublimities is Glacier Peak seen 
from Cloudy Pass. This is pre-eminently the storm- 
king, the " Cloud-Compeller " (Nephelegereta, in the 
sounding word of Homer), and rarelj^ can one catch 
an unobstructed view of its glistening cone. After 
much watching and waiting we caught the base and 



322 The Columbia River 

part of the double crown of the mighty mass. Glacier 
Peak is the " Great Unknown " among our Washing- 
ton peaks. Every one has heard of Rainier, most 
people know of Adams, St. Helens, Baker, and Stew- 
art, but Glacier Peak, alone in its solitary grandeur, 
not visible from the cities or routes of travel, is little 
known even to the people of the State. As its name 
denotes, it is the centre of a vast glacial system. To 
any tourist with a taste for adventure. Glacier Peak 
affords the finest field, while it offers an almost un- 
touched mark for the scientist. 




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CHAPTER III 

In the Land of Wheat-field, Orchard, and Garden 

Increasing Population and Cultivation as we go South — Chelan and 
Wenatchee Orchards — The Wheat-plains East of Wenatchee to 
Spokane — Spokane, the Metropolis of the Inland Empire — The 
Falls and their Power — Interesting Points in and around Spokane 
— The Palouse Farming Country — Snake River and its Orchards 
— Vast Irrigating Enterprises of the Upper Snake — Shoshone 
Falls — Walla Walla — Waiilatpu and Whitman Monument — Whit- 
man College — Pendleton and its Wheat-fields and Historical Char- 
acters — Wallowa Lake — From Wenatchee to Priest Rapids — 
Origin of Name of Priest Rapids — Irrigating Enterprises below 
Priest Rapids — By Steamboat from Priest Rapids to Pasco — The 
Yakima Valley, its Fruits and Towns — Pasco and Kennewick and 
^the Meeting of the Waters — Prospects of the Future for the 
Irrigable Country — From Pasco to Celilo — The Umatilla Pali- 
■sades — Umatilla Rapids — Tumwater Falls — The Canal and Locks 
at Celilo — What Will be Accomplished by them for the Inland 
Empire — The Dalles — Its Historic Interest — Its Wool Business, 
its Horticultural and Agricultural Resources, its Scenery. 

OUR journey on the River thus far has been 
mainly in those sections where scenery is the 
greatest product, and where the country, 
scantily inhabited, has almost as primitive an appear- 
ance as when the gay songs of the voyageurs raised 
the echoes against the rock-walls of the lakes, while 
paddles and bateau-prows started correspondent rip- 
ples on the clear surface. 

But as we proceed southward into the State of 

323 



324 The Columbia River 

Washington, we find more and more evidences of 
cultivation and inhabitancy. At the mouths of the 
streams and on the frequent " benches " and islands, 
orchards and gardens attest the enterprise and pa- 
tience of the settlers. Around the lower end of 
Lake Chelan the big red apple, luscious peaches, 
plethoric pears, huge bunches of grapes, like the grapes 
of Eschol, make a picture of fruitfulness and delight. 
When we reach Wenatchee on the Columbia, — a river, 
a lake, and a town of the same name, meaning in the 
native tongue the " butterfly," — we find ourselves in 
the uppermost of those belts of fruit land which have 
made the River so famous. As we stroll through 
these model orchards and vines and berry patches 
and gardens, and see the wonders wrought on the 
arid soil by the life-giving waters of the Wenatchee, 
we are almost ready to join the throng that are con- 
tinually accepting the invitation to " be independent on 
ten acres of land and find health, wealth, and happiness 
in Wenatchee." In truth, these irrigated lands are 
marvels of productiveness. The valley of the Wenat- 
chee is comparatively small and not over twenty-five 
thousand acres are yet in productive bearing, but the 
fruit crop for 1916 is estimated by the State Horticul- 
turist at (7003) seven thousand and three carloads. 

Like all the irrigated regions, Wenatchee is a place 
of pleasant homes, good schools and social advantages, 
and all the accompaniments of the finest type of 
genuine, whole-souled, ambitious Americanism. At 
Wenatchee we are on the main line of the Great 
Northern Railroad, and by it we can go west through 
the Cascade Mountains to Puget Sound, or east to 
Spokane. We must return again to Wenatchee in 




Spokane Falls and City, 1886. 
Photo, by T. W. Tolman, Spokane. 




Spokane Falls and City. 1908. 
Photo, by T. W, Tolman, Spokane. 



Land of Wheat-field, Orchard, and Garden 325 

order to resume our journey down the River, but 
we will first turn eastward and make a tour of the 
great " Inland Empire " of Washington, Idaho, and 
Oregon. 

One must necessarily visit Spokane on a journey 
through the great wheat country. Spokane, the 
metropolis and the pride of Eastern Washington, is 
a wonder to the Eastern tourist. Such a city, over 
one hundred thousand people, with costly brick and 
stone buildings, four, six, ten stories high, impressive 
public buildings, schools, churches, hotels, hundred- 
foot avenues well-paved, privated wellings of archi- 
tectural excellence, — and hardly a soul there forty 
years ago! 

A grand spectacle the falls offered the eye in old 
Spokane, but now, alas, so cribbed and cabined is the 
noble stream by the marcb of industrial and electrical 
power that its wild energy is well-nigh gone except at 
the highest water. The total fall in the Spokane River 
is one hundred and forty-six feet, and the horse-power 
capacity at low water is forty thousand, at high water 
over half a million. 

Many points of interest must be hastily passed. 
The author feels great reluctance to omit a visit to the 
State College of Washington at Pullman, and the 
University of Idaho at Moscow. There are also his- 
toric spots, as one at Rosalia where a monument has 
recently been erected in commemoration of the Step- 
toe defeat in 1858, and the site of the first church in 
Eastern Washington on Walker's Prairie, where Eells 
and Walker started a mission for the Spokane Indians 
in 1838. There is also at the junction of the Spokane 
and Little Spokane, the site of Spokane House, a post 



326 The Columbia River 

of the Hudson's Bay Company. One might also well 
desire to visit the location of the old Spokane Bridge, 
where Colonel Wright crushed forever the pride and 
power of the Spokanes by killing eight hundred of their 
choicest horses. 

On whatever side viewed, either past or present, or 
in the forecast of the future, Spokane is worthy of 
careful study. Its extensive railroad system and its 
network of electric lines reaching the many lakes, 
garden and fruit tracts, and rapidly developing sub- 
urbs, are concentrating the interests of a vast and 
wealthy region. But there are other cities to see and 
other boomers to hear and other bright futures to 
forecast, and so we turn our faces southward on the 
line of the O. W. R. & N. Railway, passing through 
vale after vale between the swelhng prairies, with 
wheat, wheat, wheat, oats, oats, oats, hay, hay, hay, 
cattle, horses, hogs, apple trees, and sugar beets, 
elegant farmhouses on the knolls and spacious barns 
in the hollows, — the great Palouse farming country, 
one of the most productive in the world. Whitman 
County has produced eight million bushels of wheat 
in a season, besides vast quantities of other products. 

A hundred and forty miles from Spokane the great 
wheat plateau is broken by the profound abyss of Snake 
River. Dark, turbid, sullen, not so beautiful as the 
northern branches flowing out of the lakes, this largest 
of all the tributaries of the River goes on its swift 
and treacherous course to the union with the Columbia. 
Snake River is famous for its orchards. Almota, 
Penewawa, Alpowa, Kelly's Bar, Clarkston, Asotin, 
are the most prominent among many points where the 
cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, berries, grapes. 




Inland Empire System's Power Plant, near Spokane, 

20,000 Horse-Power. 

Photo, by T. W. Tolman. 




Lower Spokane Fail,-5. 
Photo, by T. W. Tolman. 



Land of Wheat-field, Orchard, and Garden 327 

go out by the carload and steamerload, earlier than 
anywhere else except on the banks of the Columbia 
itself, to all parts of the West and even at times to 
Chicago and New York. Hot? Yes, hot! They say 
the mercury sometimes boils out of the top of the ther- 
mometer. But heat and water and good soil make the 
rich juice and bright cheeks of the peach and nectarine. 
Lewiston is the metropolis of this region, one of the 
most attractive of the smaller Western cities, a truly 
historic spot, the key to one of the most productive 
areas in the Columbia Basin, and worthy of extended 
visit. Hundreds of miles up Snake River in the wide 
expanses of Southern Idaho the waters are being di- 
verted for some of the largest irrigation enterprises on 
earth. There the Twin Falls canal, one hundred feet 
wide and deep enough for a steamboat, conveys the 
water to two hundred and eighty thousand acres of 
land. The Minidoka canal covers almost as much. 
That part of the Snake River Valley, three hundred 
miles long by fifty miles wide, will ere long count its 
inhabitants by the million. 

No one could consider that he had really seen Snake 
River unless he had visited the Great Shoshone Falls, 
or " Pahchulaka." This sublime manifestation of na- 
ture's power is about forty miles from the town of 
Shoshone on the Oregon Short Line. The total de- 
scent is nearly three hundred feet, of which eighty 
consists of cataracts and chutes broken by rocky 
islands, while the entire stream unites in the one final 
plunge of two hundred and twelve feet. It is ten 
hundred and fifty feet wide, and the walls of basaltic 
rock rise perpendicularly a thousand feet. Niagara 
is the only waterfall on the American continent that 
can be compared with Shoshone. Niagara is much 



328 The Columbia River 

wider but not so high. Its banks are tame, while those 
of Shoshone are wildly sublime. 

The spectres of history rise up at every stage of 
a journey along Snake River. But we cannot pause. 
We pass on from the crossing of Snake River and soon 
find ourselves approaching Walla Walla. This is the 
most historic city of the Inland Empire and the oldest 
of the entire State of Washington, with the exception 
of Vancouver. The pleasant-sounding name signifies 
in the native tongue " Many Waters," though more 
literally, as the author has been told by an old Cayuse 
Indian, " Place where four creeks meet." The city of 
Walla Walla is thirty-two miles from the Columbia 
River in the midst of a broad and fertile valley, through 
which dozens of clear rivulets issuing from springs 
make their way through the birches and cottonwoods. 
The warm climate, rich soil, and abundant water, with 
multitudes of trees, give the " Garden City " an ap- 
pearance of almost tropical luxuriance. On all sides 
for many miles stretch the wheat-fields, orchards, gar- 
dens, and alfalfa-fields. It is a land of plenty. It 
is commonly said that Walla Walla has more auto- 
mobiles, more bicycles, more pianos, more flowers, and 
more pretty girls in proportion to population, than any 
other town in the North-west. 

The special historic interest of Walla Walla is 
found in the fact that it was the location of the 
Whitman JNIission and that the Whitman massacre 
took place at the Mission Station, Waiilatpu, six miles 
from the city. That spot is now marked with a marble 
crypt in which the bones of the martyrs rest, and a 
plain but imposing granite shaft stands upon the crest 
of the hill just above. 



Land of Wheat-field, Orchard, and Garden 329 

A more living monument to the missionary is found 
in Whitman College. This institution, planned on the 
model of Amherst, Yale, and Williams, though co- 
educational, was founded by Rev. Gushing Eells in 
1859 as an academy. It vi^as not till 1883 that col- 
lege work was undertaken. During that period the 
self-denying missionary and his family supported the 
infant institution by selling the products of their farm 
and devoting to it all except what was absolutely 
necessary for their own support. During years of 
slow, patient growth under very discouraging condi- 
tions, Whitman College has made friends East and 
West, and within the last few years it has become 
equipped with buildings and general facilities of high 
grade. The last report of the Treasurer gives the value 
of College property and endowment at a million and a 
quarter dollars, entirely free of debt. Walla Walla is 
becoming peculiarly known as the educational centre 
and the home city of the Inland Empire. 

From Walla Walla we take a flying trip through 
the continued wheat belt on the Umatilla and its 
branches in Northern Oregon, a region similar to that 
around Walla Walla, rich and fruitful. Of this part 
of Oregon, Pendleton on the Umatilla is the metro- 
polis. The Umatilla Indian Reservation, one of the 
most important in the history of this country, adjoins 
it. One of the most interesting persons in North-west 
history, now deceased, lived at Pendleton many years. 
Dr. William C. INIcKay, the son of Thomas McKay, 
and grandson of Alexander McKay, the last named 
being that one of the Astor company who lost his life 
on the Tonqidn. Dr. William McKay was a three- 
quarter-blood Indian, but he was well educated and 



330 The Columbia River 

one of the most interesting men in our history. An- 
other noted man, still living in the prime of life, is 
Major Lee Moorehouse, famous in earlier times as an 
Indian fighter and agent, and more recently as one 
of the most successful students and photographers of 
Indian life. Some of his pictures have gained na- 
tional fame, and the publishers of this volume are 
indebted to his courtesy for their appearance here. 
Another interesting fact in connection with Pendleton 
is that here the Pendleton Indian robes and blankets 
are manufactured, and these have borne the name of 
their home place to all parts of the United States and 
even the world. Pendleton's annual "Round-Up," 
one of the most characteristic Western scenes, perhaps 
the last stand of the "Wild West," draws visitors by 
the thousands from all parts of the world. 

While in this part of Oregon we must take ad- 
vantage of the opportunity to visit Lake Wallowa 
with its tragic and pathetic memories of Indian war 
and early settlement and with its glorious scenery, al- 
most equal to that of Chelan. Right over the lake, 
deep-set in precipitous mountain walls, towers the 
battlemented crest of Eagle Cap, the highest peak of 
the Blue Mountains. Wallowa Lake is the veritable 
jewel of the Blue Mountains, a chain which, while not 
in general equal to the Cascades for height, grandeur, 
and variety, possesses in the Wallowa Basin a group of 
attractions not surpassed in any part of the North-west. 

And now we must retrace our course after this long 
detour through the productive land bordering the 
tributaries of the River or we can in imagination fly 
on the wings of the south wind, which almost always 
blows across the Inland Empire, and find ourselves 
again at Wenatchee in order to resume our interrupted 




A Harvest Outtit, Dayton, Wash. 
Sunset Magazine. 




A Combined Harvester, near Walla Walla. 
Photo, by W. D. Chapman. 



■fn 



i\ 



Land of Wheat-field, Orchard, and Garden 331 

journey down the River. From Wenatchee to the 
foot of Priest Rapids, about sixty miles, there is no regu- 
lar steamboat communication. We can, however, use 
the same means of transportation that we have hitherto 
used so liberally, imagination, and upon that airy and 
convenie t ship we can descend the swift and tortuous 
stream. The fur brigades used to trust themselves to 
the skill of their paddles and boldly descend the rapids, 
seldom meeting with disaster. There are three prin- 
cipal rapids in this section of the River, Rock Island, 
Cabinet, and Priest. In the first the River is very 
narrow and split in sunder by ragged pinnacles of 
basaltic rock. At first observation it looks a reckless 
thing to push a boat out into the white water whirl- 
ing through these fantastic points of rock. Yet a 
bateau or canoe skilfully handled will plunge like a 
race-horse down the foaming stretch, and emerge be- 
low bow down with little water aboard and inmates 
intact. Steamboats have both descended and ascended 
this rapid, though it is considered a somewhat dan- 
gerous performance. Cabinet Rapids are less pic- 
turesque and interesting than Rock Island, but they 
offer even more serious obstacles to navigation, the 
channel being narrow and the water shallow. The 
river has cut this part of its course through the great 
plateau, and its banks on either side are rocky walls 
a thousand feet high, with occasional sandy stretches, 
sad, barren, and monotonous. There is, in fact, not 
so much to catch the eye or enlist the interest of the 
tourist (if he were here) in this dismal expanse of 
rock and sand as there is either above or below. It is 
practically uninhabited. But as we proceed upon our 
way the banks fall away, wider expanses of land ap- 



33^ The Columbia River 

pear, and we discover an occasional band of cattle or 
a settler's hut on the generally bare, brown prairie. 
We are now approaching the longest rapid and the 
most serious impediment to navigation in the whole 
course of the River from Kettle Falls to Tumwater 
Falls. This is Priest Rapids. It is ten miles in 
length and represents a descent in the River of seventy 
feet. It would certainly be impossible of navigation 
by steamboats, were it not that the descent is dis- 
tributed quite uniformly over the ten miles and the 
River in general is quite straight and with a fair depth 
of water throughout. The old voyageurs had little 
difficulty in racing down, and they seem to have 
usually ascended by cordelling their bateaux beside the 
rocks, and at some especially difficult places by light- 
ening the load and carrying around. Steamers have 
both ascended and descended, but it is so slow and 
tedious (on one occasion requiring a steamer three 
days to ascend the ten miles) that it cannot be con- 
sidered commercially navigable. It will doubtless be- 
come necessary to construct a canal and locks at this 
point to render the River continuously and profitably 
navigable. 

Alexander Ross, in his Adventures on the Coluinhia, 
tells us how Priest Rapids came to be named. The 
first expedition of the Pacific Fur Company, of which 
Ross was a member, was making its way from As- 
toria up the River in 1811, and had reached the lower 
end of this fall. While reconnoitring and making 
preparations for proceeding, a large body of Indians 
gathered, watching operations with great interest. 
Among them was a fantastically dressed individual, 
with many feathers on his head, who was going through 




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Land of Wheat-field, Orchard, and Garden 333 

some kind of a performance which the explorers con- 
ceived to have a religious significance. Considering 
him a priest, they named the rapids thus. 

The country around Priest Rapids is barren and 
unpromising in its natural state, but just below the 
foot of the rapids is one of the most interesting 
irrigation projects in the State. Along the west side 
of the River for twenty-five miles extends a belt of the 
most fertile land. An immense pumping plant run 
by electricity, which in turn is generated by the cur- 
rent, has been put in at the foot of the rapids. By 
this the water is conducted over the twenty thousand 
or more acres of land available, and it is the expecta- 
tion that within a few years a dense population will 
line the river bank and repeat on a larger and finer 
scale the miracle of redemption by water already per- 
formed at various points on the River and its tribu- 
taries. Several town sites, of which the chief is 
Hanford, named from the president of the company, 
have already been laid out, and investments both in 
town property and orchard land are being rapidly 
made. The same process of irrigating is becoming 
inaugurated at many points from Hanford for a 
hundred and fifty miles down the River. It is plain 
to the observer that it is but a question of time when 
the shores of the River in this arid section will bloom 
and blossom like the rose, and repeat the history of 
Old Nile in massing of population and creation of 
cities and towns. It has been estimated that there are 
about a million acres of irrigable land contiguous to 
the River between Chelan and The Dalles. Since 
from five to twenty acres of irrigated land are ample 
to maintain a family, and since cities and villages are 



334 The Columbia River 

bound to grow on such tracts commensurate -with their 
productive capacity, it seems probable that a million 
people will sometime live on this long belt of fertile 
soil redeemed by the River. 

The beauty of irrigation on the Columbia is that 
it can be made to pump itself. For b}^ taking ad- 
vantage of such a fall as that of Priest Rapids (a 
half million horse-power at ordinary water), electric 
power can be generated by which limitless water can 
be raised sufficiently to cover any desired amount of 
land. Some have expressed the opinion that this 
process would exhaust the River, but this is hardly 
possible. For the great demands are in June and 
July when the River is at its flood. It has been esti- 
mated that at low water the Columbia at Celilo dis- 
charges 125,000 cubic feet per second, and at extreme 
high water, 1,600,000 cubic feet per second. Such a 
prodigious volume of water would be scarcely at all 
affected by any possible withdrawals. 

The River from the foot of Priest Rapids is regu- 
larly navigated by several steamers connecting the 
new lands and towns with Pasco, the railroad centre 
seventy miles below. This section of the River is deep 
and tranquil, a superb watercourse. Below Hanford 
the River receives the Yakima River, which is the 
important agent in the irrigation of the great Yakima 
Valley. Xo one could say that he knew the Colum- 
bia River or the State of Washington without a visit 
to that valley, the largest in the State and the scene 
of the most extensive development in irrigated lands 
anywhere in the North-west. The fruit crop of 1916 
is estimated at 8777 carloads, with probably double 
that amount of hay and garden products. Buyers of 



Land of Wheat-field, Orchard, and Garden 335 

Yakima fruits come from all parts of the East, from 
England, and even from France. Fortunes have been 
made in that fair land, — a fair land when supplied 
with water, but an arid waste without it. The United 
States Government has acquired control of most of the 
water system of the Yakima, and by means of storage 
basins in the mountain lakes where the Yakima and 
its branches rise, will be able to supply water for over 
a million acres of land. 

The productive capacity of these fat lands when 
softened with an irrigating ditch and tickled with a 
hoe or cultivator is almost beyond belief. In 1907 
an orchardist in what is known as Parker Bottom 
in the Yakima Valley raised on fifty-eight pear trees 
a crop of pears which was sold for over three thousand 
dollars. This statement is well attested, extraordinary 
as it sounds. It should be understood that such pro- 
duction does not represent an average yield. The 
trees were of large size and of the choicest variety, 
while conditions of production, price, and sale were 
of the best. Yet similar records may be found in 
Wenatchee, Hood River, Walla Walla, and others of 
the fine fruit-producing regions of the Columbia 
Valley. A man in the Touchet Valley near Dayton, 
who had been for twenty years a teacher at an aver- 
age salary of a thousand a year, became discontented 
with his narrow conditions, and by making credit 
arrangements for a rich body of land has devoted him- 
self for some years to the development of an apple 
orchard. He has a hundred acres of trees, young and 
of choice varieties, from which in the year 1907 he 
sold thirty-four thousand boxes of fruit for approxi- 
mately fifty thousand dollars. 



336 The Columbia River 

But while we have been flying in imagination over 
the spacious valley of the Yakima, our steamer has 
been speeding down the broad River, and we are now 
within sight of a vast prairie stretching east and south, 
bounded on the southern horizon by the azure wall, 
ridged with white, of the Blue JNIountains. To the 
east, this great plain melts into the sky. In fact it 
extends to the Bitter Root Mountains, a distance of 
over two hundred miles. On the west bank of the 
River we see a narrower plain bounded by a steep 
treeless ridge. On either bank we see taking shape 
before us houses and trees, while extended over the 
River, like threads of gossamer in the distance, a 
bridge is outlined against the sky. We soon dis- 
cover that we are near Pasco on the east bank 
and Kennewick on the west bank of the River. 
The bridge is that of the Northern Pacific and 
Spokane, Portland, and Seattle Railroads. A mile 
below the bridge the Snake River joins its greater 
brother. Another mile below is another great bridge, 
by which the Yakima branch of the Oregon-Washing- 
ton Railroad spans the River. 

This point is the very hub of the Inland Empire. 
Here the two great rivers unite. Here steamboating 
on a vast scale will take place in the near future. The 
completion of the Celilo Canal in 1915 opened water 
navigation to the ocean. Here four transcontinental 
railrodcs pass, two down the River and two to Puget 
Sound, c.nd still another is heading for the Sound. 
Here a body of the richest soil, on both sides of both 
rivers, embracing at least a hundred and fifty thousand 
acres, waits only for water to bloom and yield as Wenat- 
chee and Yakima have already done. Here the long. 



Land of Wheat-field, Orchard, and Garden 337 

hot summer insures the earhest production of any part 
of the North-west, and in early production the profit is 
found. 

It is, in fact, obvious at a glance that here at the 
junction of the Columbia and Snake Rivers, at the 
crossings of the great railroads, and at the point of 
the greatest area of irrigable land in one body, with 
every advantage of soil, climate, and transportation, 
there is bound to be in the near future a large citj?-. 
Already on the west side of the Columbia the beauti- 
ful little town of Kennewick, of three thousand 
inhabitants, where six years ago the jack-rabbits, 
coyotes, and sage-hens held sway, shows what can be 
done with water. For at that point the first irri- 
gating canal was put through the waste, and the 
traveller can now see the results. 

Other irrigating enterprises are now in progress, 
and by the time the readers of this volume come to 
descend the River in the elegant steamboats which 
will sometime run through canals and locks the whole 
length from Revelstoke to the ocean, there will be one 
of the most splendid cities in the North-west at this 
meeting of the waters. From Kennewick and Pasco 
steamers make regular trips to Portland and Astoria. 
The traveller who desires to know the River from 
its surface should take passage on such a steamer. 
We see the same characteristic features of the inaug- 
uration of irrigating enterprises from point to point, but 
mainly the shores are still uninhabited and barren, 
and the River, mainly untouched by sail or steamer, 
sweeps on its swift course, as lonely as when Lewis 
and Clark first turned their canoe prows westward. 

As we pass the old site of Fort Walla Walla and 



33^ The Columbia River 

the mouth of the Walla Walla River, we can recall the 
old Hudson's Bay fort, the Indian wars, the struggle 
for possession, the missions, the incoming immigrants, 
all the tragedy and striving which marked the century 
just closed. Below Wallula the Umatilla highlands 
throw a barrier eight hundred feet high athwart the 
course of the stream, and the bold escarpments of 
rock, palisades grander than those of the Hudson, 
attest the energy with which the River fulfilled his 
mission of cleaving the intercepting barrier in two. 
Below these palisades, a vast plain extends many 
miles on the south to where the purple line of the Blue 
Mountains cuts the horizon. On the margin of this 
plain the little town of Irrigon (where is published a 
paper with the alliterative title of the Irrigon Irri- 
gationist of Irrigon^ Oregon) , green and flowery in 
the wide aridity, shows us again what part water plays 
in reclamation of land. Of similar interest is Blalock 
Island, commemorating the name of Dr. N. G. Bla- 
lock of Walla Walla, whom the North-west honours 
as the father of great enterprises. 

We pass several rapids on this section of the River, 
the chief of which are the Umatilla, John Day, and 
Hell-gate. These are somewhat serious impediments 
to navigation at low water. The Umatilla Rapid 
presents the curious feature of a reef extending almost 
directly across the River with the channel running 
parallel to it and at right angles to the course of the 
stream. Hence when the water is so low that the reef 
cannot be passed directly over, the steamer pilot must 
follow a channel running right across the current, a 
current which tends to throw him broadside onto the 
reef. The Government is at present engaged in blast- 



Land of Wheat-field, Orchard, and Garden 339 

ing a channel directly through this reef. The country 
becomes more rugged as we descend, and at various 
points, if the sky be clear, we can see the great peaks 
of the Cascades to the west. Passing through the 
wild water of Hell-gate, where the steamer quivers as 
though great hands were reaching up from below and 
shaking her, we soon find ourselves at Celilo. 

This is the beginning of the greatest series of ob- 
structions on the River and the point where the Gov- 
ernment has constructed a canal, by means of which 
the entire upper course of the River is brought into 
connection with the lower. In the distance of twelve 
miles the River falls eighty-one feet at low water and 
sixty feet at high water. The Tumwater Falls at the 
head of this series of obstructions has a descent of 
twenty feet at low water, but at high water the vol- 
ume of the River is so great that it passes directly over 
the fall and a boat can shoot over the steep slope. 
Here was one of the most famous places in early history. 
On the north side was the Wishram village, noted in 
Irving's Astoria. This, too, was the greatest place for 
fishing on the upper River. Even now the Indians 
gather in autumn in great numbers and can be seen 
spearing the salmon. Several immense fish-wheels 
also can be seen upon the verge of the falls. 

The most remarkable of all these obstructions is 
Five-Mile Rapids. This is the point to which in 
the first place the French voyageurs applied the 
name Dalles^ meaning a trough through the flat 
plates of rock. It is sometimes called the " Big 
Chute," and also Grand Dalles. 

Now that these obstructions have been overcome 
by canal and locks, the greater part of the Inland 



340 The Columbia River 

Empire is thrown open to steamer competition with 
the railroads. The freight tariff at the present time 
is heavier than in any other part of the United 
States. If the productive capacity of the region 
were not extraordinary, it could not have developed 
as it has with such a handicap. It is estimated that 
by the reduction of freight which will follow steamboat 
navigation, the Inland Empire will save not less than 
two million dollars annually. In the tremendous move- 
ment now sweeping over our country to improve 
waterways, the Columbia will bear its part and 
receive its improvement. It will be a great day for 
the storied and scenic River of the West when 
some magnificent excursion steamer descends the 
thousand miles from Revelstoke to the outer head- 
lands. And with canals at Priest Rapids, and Kettle 
Falls, in addition to those already at Celilo, with some 
improvements at minor points, at no immoderate 
expense, the thing can be done. 

And now we reach the city of The Dalles. The 
traveller will find this a place hardly surpassed in his- 
toric interest by any other on the River. The old 
trading posts, the United States fort, the missions, the 
Indian wars, the early immigrations, the steamboat 
enterprises, all unite to give rare value to this pic- 
turesque " capital of the sheep country." For, aside 
from historic interest, The Dalles surpasses any other 
point in the United States as a wool shipping station. 
It is now becoming also the centre of a farming and 
orchard country. For it is now understood that the 
rolling hill land for many miles is adapted to wheat 
raising and to fruit of the finest quality. If our 
visitors to the River should happen to be in The 




"rr-'^jW.IPJflJ^i-f^ , :Si5r7»7E-' 



iiliiiilitt 



Hunters on Lake Chelan, with their Spoils. 
Photo, by W. D. Lyman. 




A Morning's Catch on the Touchet, near Dayton, Wash. 
Sunset Magazine. 



Land of Wheat-field, Orchard, and Garden 341 

Dalles in autumn they would find at the Wasco County 
Horticultural Fair one of the most attractive and ap- 
petising displays of fruit that the whole country 
affords. 

The scenery about The Dalles, with the majestic 
River, the great white cones of Hood and Adams, and 
wide sweeps of rolling prairie and hollowed hills, is 
noble and inspiring. It may be considered the gate- 
way of the open prairie to the east and the passage 
of the Cascade Mountains by the River to the west. 

Output of the three North-western States in 1915: 

Lumber (of which about half is from the River and 
its tributaries, and about half from Puget Sound and the 
coast parts of Oregon and Washington) 5,417,000,000 
feet. 

Mineral: $42,075,094.00. 

Agricultural: 

Wheat 89,149,000 Bushels 

Other Grains 65,854,000 - " 

Potatoes 17,255,000 

Hay 5,566,000 Tons 

Estimated value of agricultural products for 1915, 
$165,000,000. 

For 1916 about 25 per cent. more. Fruit production 
for 1916 estimated at 40,000 carloads. 



CHAPTER IV 

Where River and Mountain Meet, and the Traces 
of the Bridge of the Gods 

The Most Unique Point yet on the River — River, Mountains, and 
Tide — The Only Place where the Cascade Range is Cleft — Distant 
View of Mt. Hood and Gradual Appearance of Lesser Heights — 
Limits of Region where River and Mountain Meet — Geological 
Character of this Region — Forces of Upheaval and Erosion and 
Volcano — We May Journey by Rail, by Steamboat, Horseback, 
Waggon, or Afoot, but we Prefer a Rowboat — Paha Cliffs — On 
the Track of Speelyei — Memaloose Island — Hood River and White 
Salmon Valleys and their Fruit — Beginnings of the Great 
Heights — The Sunken Forest — The Bridge of the Gods — Loowit, 
Wiyeast, and Klickitat — Difference in Climate between the East- 
of-the-Mountains and the West — Sheridan's Old Blockhouse — 
Passing the Locks — Petrified Trees — Fish-wheels — Castle Rock 
— Ascent of Castle Rock — Story of Wehatpolitan — St. Peter's 
Dome — Oneonta Gorge — Multnomah Falls — Cape Horn — Getting 
out of the Mountains — Cape Eternity and Rooster Rock — This 
Section of the Journey Ended — Comparison of the River with 
other Great Scenes. 

IN the long journey down our River we have had 
a panoramic view of towering mountains and 
broad plains, foaming cataracts and tranquil lakes, 
fruitful valleys and volcanic desolations, growing cities 
and lonely wastes. All illustrate that infinite variety 
of the River which imparts its unrivalled charm. 

But now we are approaching a point which is 
unique even in the midst of the unique, varied in never- 
ending variety, sublime even in almost continuous 

342 



Where River and Mountain Meet 343 

sublimity, singular even upon our most singular River. 
This place is where the mountains and the River 
meet. By mountains we mean the great chain of the 
Cascades, which under various names parallels the 
Pacific Coast all the way from Alaska to Southern 
California. But not only do mountains and River 
meet here, but the ocean sends his greetings, for at 
the lower end of the rapids which here mark the gate- 
\^'ay of the mountains, the first pulse-beat of the 
Pacific, the first throb of the tide, is discernible, though 
it is a hundred and sixty miles farther to where the 
River is lost in that greatest of the oceans. River, 
Mountains, Ocean, — a very symposium of sublimities. 

There is, too, another especially interesting feature 
of this spot, and that is, it is the only place for twelve 
hundred miles where the Cascade- Sierra Range is cleft 
asunder. In fact it is the only place in the entire ex- 
tent of the range where it is cut squarely across. This 
fact imparts not only scenic interest, but commercial 
value. It is the only water-level route from the 
seacoast to the Inland Empire. 

The place where River and mountains meet had 
been heralded to us long before we reached it. For 
as we passed the plains of the Umatilla we got an in- 
timation of the mountain majesty which we were ap- 
proaching. Clear-limned against the south-western 
horizon, a glistening cone, cold-white in the earliest 
morning, rosy-red with the rising dawn, and warm 
with the yellow halo of noon, fixes our eyes and bids 
us realise that from the far vision of a hundred miles 
we can see and worship at the shrine of Oregon's 
noblest and most historic peak, ]Mt. Hood. As we 
speed on down the current we begin to see long lines 



344 The Columbia River 

of lesser peaks rising to the westward. The prairies 
of the Umatilla have been succeeded by picturesque 
bare hills, and these by ragged palisades of columnar 
basalt, with higher hills yet, crowned with gnarled 
oak-trees. Of the wheat-fields and orchards and sheep 
ranges centring at The Dalles, we have already 
spoken, and we have paused at Celilo and zed on 
the historic *'Timm," or the Tumwater Falls, and 
the "Big Chute," observing especially the Govern- 
ment canal and locks in use, from whose completion 
such vast commercial possibilities are plainly fore- 
shadowed. Our present quest is therefore yet farther 
on, to the gateway of the mountains. This is found 
at the " Cascade Locks," fifty miles below Dalles City. 
The section of river which we have styled " Where 
River and Mountain Meet " may be considered as ex- 
tending from the mouth of the Klickitat River, a few 
miles west of Dalles City, to Rooster Rock, about 
thirty miles east of Vancouver. The distance between 
these points is about fifty miles, and through this space 
we may see all the evidences of a titanic struggle be- 
tween the master forces of fire and water and upheaval. 
As we descend the majestic stream with the majestic 
banks on either hand and mark the apparent ancient 
water-marks hundreds of feet above our heads, we recall 
the Indian myth of Wishpoosh in an earlier chapter. 
The opinion of geologists in regard to this extraordinary 
passageway of the River is that it represents ages of 
gradual elevation of the mountain chain and a cotem- 
porary erosion by the River, so that as the heights 
became higher, the river bed became deeper. The one- 
time shore slowly mounted skyward, and as the new 
upheavals rose from the ocean deeps the lines of ero- 



Vhere River and Mountain Meet 345 

sion were in turn wrought on them, and river shore 
succeeded river shore through long ages. With these 
fundamental forces of upheaval and erosion there were 
eras of local seismic and volcanic activity, more cata- 
clysmic in nature, from which came the magnificent 
pillars of columnar basalt and the first trenching of 
the profc id chasms which subsequent lateral streams 
carved through the rising base of the great range. 

To view this great picture gallery of history and 
physiography, we may have the choice of nearly every 
method of travel: horseback, afoot, by team, bicycle, 
motorcycle, or automobile, on the Scenic Highway, 
elsewhere described, or by train, on either bank. 
The river itself offers its broad back for any kind 
of craft. Several swift and elegant steamers make 
daily trips between Portland and The Dalles, pass- 
ing through the Government canal and locks at the 
Cascades. Launches, scows, sailing craft of almost 
every kind, are in constant movement, loaded with 
every sort of commodity. Of all the means of tran- 
sit, however, we will, if you please, float down the 
stately stream in our well-tried skiff. Independent as 
the Coyote god Speelyei when he used to pass up and 
down the river, transforming presumptuous beasts or 
mortals into rock at will, we will drift with the cur- 
rent, partaking of the very life of the rich and multi- 
farious nature about us. We can pause as we wish 
on jutting crag or fir-crowned promontory or at the 
foot of spouting cataract. We can camp for the night 
beneath some wide-spreading pine, and breathe the 
balsamic fragrance of the " continuous woods." We 
can trace the historic stages of bateaux or canoes or 
immigrant flatboats, and open and shut the camera at 



346 The Columbia River 

will amid the open volumes of our heroic age of dis- 
covery and settlement, or the yet vaster and grander 
epoch of Nature's creative day. No palace car or even 
floating palace of steamer for us when we can have 
two or three days of such unalloyed bliss in an open 
skiff moving at our own sweet will. 

We shall find here a marked change in the move- 
ment of the river as compared with its prevailing char- 
acter in the five hundred miles from the British line 
to The Dalles. The impetuous might above has be- 
come transformed into a slow and stately majesty. 
With the exception of the five miles at the Cascades 
round which the canal passes, the river below The 
Dalles is deep and calm, seldom less than a mile in 
width. 

Of the almost numberless objects at which we level 
eye and camera, we can here describe but few. 

A fitting introduction to this stage of our journey 
is found in Paha Cliffs at the mouth of the KHckitat, 
a perpendicular bastion of- lava rock, not remarkable 
for height, but of such regularity and symmetry as to 
seem the work of men's hands. A short distance be- 
low the Paha Cliffs, also on the Washington side of 
the river, is a most singular semicircular wall of gigan- 
tic area, surrounding on the west what seems to be 
an immense sunken enclosure. The Indians have a 
story to the effect that once Speelyei, being on his way 
up the river before this wall existed, paused here to 
perform some unworthy deed (for Speelj^ei was a curi- 
ous mixture of the noble and the base) . Having done 
the deed, he began to fear that it would become known. 
So he hurriedly built a wall to keep in the report. But 
while he was engaged in building on the west, the re- 




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Where River and Mountain Meet 347 

port got out oil the east. The wall that we now see 
is the remains of his building. Of a similar order of 
Indian fancy is the " Baby-on-the-Board " and the 
" Coyote Head " farther down the river, also on the 
north side. The Coyote Head is near White Salmon. 
It commemorates the transformation of a presumptu- 
ous Klickitat chief who wished to proclaim himself 
equal to Speelyei, so he crowned himself with a 
coyote skin and took his station on the great rock wall 
above the mouth of the White Salmon. And there 
he remains still, for Speelyei with a wave of the hand 
transformed the offending chieftain into rock. 

A few miles below the mouth of the Klickitat, there 
stands in mid-channel one of the most curious and in- 
teresting objects on the river, " Memaloose Island." 
This desolate islet of basalt was one of the most noted 
of the frequent " death " or burial places of the In- 
dians. They were accustomed to build platforms and 
place the dead upon them. Apparentl}^ this island 
was used for its gruesome purpose for centuries. A 
large white marble monument facing the south at- 
tracts the attention of all travellers, and as we pass 
we see that it is sacred to the memory of Vic Trevett. 
He was a prominent pioneer of The Dalles, and in 
the course of his various experiences became a special 
friend of the Indians, who looked upon him with such 
love and reverence that when his end approached he 
gave directions that his permanent burial-place and 
monument should be on the place sacred to his ab- 
original friends. 

We have spoken of the region between the mouth 
of the Klickitat and Rooster Rock as the mountain 
section of the river. But as we move on down the 



348 The Columbia River 

stream we discover that there are numerous nooks and 
glens adjoining it which are the choicest locations for 
fruit and garden ranches. At a point just about 
midway from The Dalles to the Cascades there is a 
remarkable break in the otherwise unbroken and con- 
stantly rising mountain walls. This break constitutes 
one of the most charming residence regions on the 
Columbia shores, and at the same time the avenue of 
approach to the most magnificent of mountains. 
There are here two great valleys. One of these is that 
of Hood River, better called by its musical Indian 
name Waukoma, "The Place of Cottonwoods." It pro- 
ceeds directly from the foot of Mt. Hood, twenty-five 
miles distant to the south. The valley on the north 
bears a similar relation to ]Mt. Adams, forty miles 
distant, and is drained by the White Salmon River. 
From favourable points on the River, or from the 
heights which border it, we obtain views of the two 
peaks which create an unappeasable longing to tread 
their crags and snow-fields. Though truly mountain 
valleys, these two valleys are of spacious extent. They 
are moreover so richly provided with sun and water 
and all the ingredients of soil necessary to produce the 
choicest fruit that they have become the very paradise 
of the orchardist. The Hood River apples grace the 
tables of royalty in the old world and delight the palates 
of epicures in both hemispheres, while to the eyes and 
the nostrils of any one of delicate sensibilities their 
colour and fragrance impart a still more aesthetic charm. 
As we pass on down the river from those two vales 
of beauty and plenty, we begin to see the first of those 
lofty crags on either hand, the basaltic pinnacles, tur- 
retted, spired, castellated, which make the distinguishing 



Where River and Mountain Meet 349 

feature of Columbia River scenery for these fifty miles. 
Mitchell's Point, Shell Rock Mountain, Wind Moun- 
tain, Bald Mountain, and Mt. Defiance are the first 
group. The lowest of the group attains an elevation of 
nearly two thousand feet, almost perpendicular, while 
at the summit of the crags rise a thousand feet higher 
yet long grassy slopes alternating with splendid forests. 

As we near the Cascades we note another curious 
phenomenon. This is the sunken forest on either side. 
At low water these old tree trunks become very ob- 
servable, and their general appearance suggests at once 
that they are the remains of a former forest submerged 
by a permanent rise in the river. This explanation is 
confirmed by the fact that from The Dalles to the 
Cascades the river is very deep and sluggish. When 
we reach the Cascades a third fact is revealed and that 
is that at the chief cataract the river bank is continu- 
ally sliding into the river. Trees are thrown down by 
this slow sliding process, railroad tracks require fre- 
quent adjustment, and on clear, still nights there is 
sometimes heard a grinding sound, while a tremor 
from the subterranean regions seems to indicate that 
the upper stratum is sliding over the lower toward 
the river. In fact, the mighty force of the stream is 
all the time eating into the bank and gradually draw- 
ing it down. 

From these and other indications the conclusion has 
been drawn that some prodigious avalanche of rock at 
a not long distant time dammed the river at this point, 
creating the present Cascades and raising the water 
above so as to submerge the forest, whose remains now 
attract the attention of the observer at the low stage 
of water. 



350 The Columbia River 

To confirm this theory we have the Indian story 
of the " tomanowas bridge," the quaintest and most 
interesting of the long list of native myths. 

The region around the old site of the " Bridge of 
the Gods " may be considered as the dividing line be- 
tween the Inland Empire and the Coast Region. 
Above, it is dry, sunny, breezy, and electrical, the land 
of wheat-field and sheep ranges, cow-boys and horses 
and mining camps. Below, it is cool, cloudy, still, 
and soft, the region of the clover and the dairy, the 
salmon cannery, the logging camp, and boats of every 
sort. Above, the rocks look dry and hard, and glitter 
in the sun. Below, the rocks are draped in moss, and 
from every canon and ledge there seems to issue a 
foaming torrent. It is, in truth, the meeting place of 
mountain and River. 

On all sides around the Cascades there are objects 
of natural and historic interest. Stupendous crags, 
often streaked with snow, lose themselves in the scud 
of the ocean which is almost constantly flying east- 
ward to be absorbed in the more fervid sunshine of 
up-river. Perhaps the most impressive of these vast 
heights is Table Mountain, on the north side of the 
River, near the locks, said to have been one of the 
supports of the " Bridge of the Gods." Its colours 
of saffron and crimson add to the splendour and 
grandeur of its appearance. Just below the locks on 
the north side stood the old blockhouse built by a 
young lieutenant in 1856 as a defence against the 
Klickitat Indians. The blockhouse is now in ruins, 
but the name of its builder has been fairly well 
preserved, for it is — Phil Sheridan. 

The total extent of the cataract at the Cascades is 



Where River and Mountain Meet 351 

five miles and the descent is about forty-five feet, of 
which half is at the upper end at the point passed by 
the locks. We enter the locks in the wake of one of 
the steamers, and in a few minutes find our craft 
emerging from the lower end of the massive structure 
into the white water which bears us swiftly down the 
remaining part of the Cascades. It looks dangerous 
to commit an open boat to that sweeping current, but 
as a matter of fact the course of the river is straight 
and deep, though swift, and it is entirely feasible for 
any one of reasonable skill to manage a small boat in 
the passageway to the tranquil expanses below. 

As we speed swiftly down the river, we note the 
little station of Bonneville, named for the historic fur- 
trader whom the fascinating pages of Irving have 
brought down to this era. A short distance below 
Bonneville our eyes catch sight of a white sign-board 
bearing the words, " Petrified Tree." Sure enough, 
there is the tree, and a marvellously fine specimen of 
silicification it is, too. When the railroad was built 
along the river bank at this point, the graders ran into 
a perfect forest of petrified wood. The logs and 
limbs were piled up by the cord near Bonneville, but 
the larger part has been taken in various directions for 
cabinets and ornaments. 

But a short time is needed to fly down the Cas- 
cades, and at their lower end we reach what may be 
called the Lower River. For here a slight rise and 
fall of tide betokens the presence of the ocean. No 
more rapids on the River, but a tranquil, majestic 
flood, broadening like a sea toward its final destination, 
a hundred and sixty miles away. 

If we were to describe in detail all the marvels of 



352 The Columbia River 

beauty and grandeur and physical interest which en- 
gage our attention at every stage of the journey, our 
volume would end with this chapter, for there would 
be no room for anything more. One class of objects 
of curious interest to almost all travellers, though of 
no special charm to scientist or nature lover, is the 
fish-wheels at the Cascades. These are very ingenious 
contrivances set in the midst of a swift place in the 
stream and made to revolve by the current. As they 
revolve, the huge vans dipping the water scoop up al- 
most incredible numbers of the salmon which have 
made the Columbia famous the world over. A weir 
is built to turn the fish from the outside course into 
the channel of the wheel, with the result that numbers 
are taken almost beyond belief, sometimes as high as 
eight tons a day by a single wheel. Another pic- 
turesque sight, both at the Celilo Falls and the Cas- 
cades, is the Indian fishermen perched upon the rocks 
and with spear and dip-net seeking to fill their larder 
with the noble salmon. 

But now to contemplate the works of God and Na- 
ture rather than those of man. We must, as already 
seen, by the necessities of space, ask our readers to 
share with us only the masterpieces of this gallery of 
wonders. Probably all visitors to the River would 
agree that the following scenes most nearly express 
the spirit and character of the sublime whole: Castle 
Rock, St. Peter's Dome, Oneonta Gorge, JMultnomah 
Falls, Cape Horn, and Rooster Rock. To these indi- 
vidual scenes we should add, as the very crown of all, 
the view at the lower Cascades both up and down the 
great gorge. With the majestic heights, scarred with 
the tempests and the earthquakes of the ages, swathed 




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Where River and Mountain Meet 353 

in drifting clouds and oftentimes tipped with snow, and 
the shimmering of the River, and the answering 
grandeur of sky and forest, — this grouping of the 
whole is more inspiring than any one scene. 

The first special object to fix our attention below 
the Cascades is Castle Rock. It is an isolated cliff 
of basalt, eleven hundred feet high, covering about 
seventeen acres, its summit thinly clothed with stunted 
trees. It stands right on the verge of the River, nearly 
perpendicular on all sides, marvellous for symmetry 
from every point of view. At first sight one gets no 
conception of its magnitude, for it is dwarfed by the 
stupendous pinnacles, three thousand feet high, which 
compose the walls of the canon. It is said that some 
Eastern lady, seeing it from a steamer's deck, ex- 
claimed, " See that fine rock! I wish I had it in my 
back yard at home." Being informed that she would 
have to find a pretty spacious back yard to accommodate 
an ornament covering seventeen acres, she was too 
much astonished to believe it. But to any one view- 
ing it deliberately and from every point of view, and 
especially landing, as we in our happy method of 
travel can do, and going about its base, it becomes 
evident that Castle Rock might be called a mountain 
in almost any other place. It was for a long time re- 
garded as an impossible thing to reach the summit. 
For some years there was a standing offer of one 
thousand dollars for any one who would place the 
Stars and Stripes on the summit. But no one took 
the dare. At last in 1901, when the rivalry betMcen 
two steamboat lines was keen, Frank Smith of the 
Regulator Line, with George Purser and Charles 
Church, accomplished the seemingly impossible, and, 



354 The Columbia River 

by ropes and staples and fingers and teeth and toe- 
nails, sealed the almost perpendicular walls, and un- 
furled the Regulator banner to the breeze where no 
flag ever flew before, nor human foot ever trod. It 
was probably the most risky climb ever taken in the 
North-west. A little later, by the aid of the experi- 
ence of this party, several others attained the summit. 
Among these were George Maxwell, who set the 
Oregon Railway and Navigation flag as high as that 
of the Regulator had gone, and two photographers, 
W. C. Staatz and George M. Weister. With them 
went a young lady, Lilian White, who, though she 
did not reach the summit, went higher than any of 
her sex have gone. Later Mr. Whitney, manager of 
the great McGowan Cannery, went up and placed the 
Stars and Stripes upon the top. 

We said that no earlier human steps had trodden 
that beetling height and that Miss White had gone 
higher than any of her sex. But if we accept the 
romantic Indian tale of Wehatpolitan, our statement 
needs correction. For this story is to the following 
effect. Wehatpolitan was the beautiful child of the 
principal chieftain in these parts. She loved and was 
loved by a young chief of a neighbouring tribe. But 
when she was sought by her lover in marriage, the 
stern father denied the request and killed the mes- 
senger. But the lovers were secretly married and 
met clandestinely at various times. In course of time 
the father, thinking the infatuation of the forbidden 
lovers to be at an end, gave Wehatpolitan to a chief 
whom he had favoured. The latter kept constant 
watch of the girl, and one night he saw her stealing 
steathily away, and tracking her he found the secret 




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Where River and Mountain Meet 355 

of her midnight wanderings. As soon as the new 
lover had imparted to the father these tidings, the 
latter with deep duplicity sent word to the other chief- 
tain that if he would come to the lodge, all would be 
forgiven and he and Wehatpolitan would be duly wed. 
Rejoicing at the happy outcome to all their troubles, 
the faithful lover hastened to his own, but no sooner 
had he arrived than he was seized upon and slain by 
the revengeful parent. Not long after this the heart- 
broken girl gave birth to a child, but her father at once 
decreed that the child must share its father's fate. 
Hearing this pitiless word, Wehatpolitan caught up 
her child and disappeared. All that day they searched 
in vain, and on the next day, the Indians heard wait- 
ings from the top of Castle Rock, from which they 
soon discovered that the poor girl with her child had 
gone to that apparently inaccessible height. The old 
chief, repenting of his harsh course, called aloud to 
his daughter to come down and he would forgive her. 
But fearing new treachery she paid no heed, and the 
wailings continued. Overcome with grief the remorse- 
ful chief offered all kinds of rewards for any one who 
would climb the rock and save Wehatpolitan and her 
child. But though many tried, none could succeed. 
On the third day the wailings ceased. Then the half- 
crazed father himself essayed to climb. He seemed 
to succeed, for at least he disappeared among the crev- 
ices of the rock high up toward the summit. But he 
never returned. The Indians thought that he reached 
the top and that finding the lifeless bodies of his 
daughter and her child he had probably given up 
all hope of getting down and had lain down and died 
with them. But even vet heart-breaking wailings 



356 The Columbia River 

come down from time to time, especially when the 
Chinook blows soft and damp up the river, and these 
wailings have been thought by Indians to be the voice 
of the spirit of the unhappy Wehatpolitan, because it 
could never descend to the happy hunting grounds of 
the tribe. 

Another native idea is to the effect that Castle 
Rock (which ought to be called Wehatpolitan's grave- 
stone) is hollow and is filled with the bodies of former 
generations now turned to stone. As a matter of fact, 
the party of 1901 found evidence of a great cave, but 
so far there has been found no practical ingress. So 
the interior is still an unexplored mystery. Immense 
quantities of spear-heads and arrow-heads are found 
along the river at this point, and these are apparently 
of an earlier age than most of those found in this 
country. 

Loosing from the enchanted shore of Wehatpolitan's 
monument, we see for several miles on the Oregon 
side a cordon of perpendicular cliffs, red and purple 
in hue, streaked with spray, and touched here and there 
with the deep green of firs which have rooted them- 
selves with claw-like roots into the crevices. Most 
symmetrical and beautiful, though not the highest of 
this line of elevations, is St. Peter's Dome. Its sum- 
mit is over two thousand feet above the river. While 
in height it is surpassed by certain crags of Chelan or 
Yosemite, as well as its brothers on the river, it has 
no rival in beauty there, or elsewhere, so far as the 
author has seen, among the wonders of the American 
continent. Every hour of the day, every change of 
sky or season, reveals some new and unexpected 
beauty or sublimity in this superb cliff. 




Oneonta Gorge — Looking In. 
Photo, by E. H. Moorehouse. 



The Bridge of the Gods 357 

We are almost sated with subhmities by the time 
we pass on down below St. Peter's Dome, but one of 
the most unique scenes of all is close at hand. This 
is Oneonta Gorge. A swift stream issuing from the 
cliffs on the south side of the River attracts our at- 
tention, and we moor our boat to the roots of a tall 
Cottonwood and make our way inward. The wall is 
cleft asunder, its sides almost meeting above. At 
places the smooth sides of the Gorge leave no space 
except for the passage of the pellucid stream, and we 
have to wade hip deep to make our way. Showers of 
spray descend from the towering roof above, and in 
places we are well-nigh in darkness. Then there is a 
widening and through the broken wall the lances of 
sunshine pierce the gloom with rainbow tints. Mar- 
vellous Oneonta with the sweet-sounding name! It, 
too, has its wealth of native myth, of which our nar- 
rowing limits forbid us to speak. 

And now leaving Oneonta, we can see that we have 
passed the maximum of the mountains, and are already 
looking into a broadening valley, with the yet more 
lordly volume of the river widening toward the sunset. 
While our eyes are thus drawn toward the river, the 
diminishing walls of the canon, and the fair entrance 
to what may be called the genuine West-of-the-Moun- 
tains, we perceive on the Oregon shore a series of 
waterfalls, higher and grander than has even been the 
wont, and in the midst of them, far-famed ]\Iultnomah. 
A spacious sweep of circling mountains, a perpendic- 
ular wall, indented with a deep recess, and crowned 
upon its topmost bastions with a row of frightened 
looking trees, and partially visible through intercept- 
ing cottonwoods at the River's margin a moving 



358 The Columbia River 

whiteness, — such is the first vision of this matchit 
waterfall. A short space farther carries us past th- 
screen of cottonwoods, and the whole majestic scene 
lies before us. Like St. Peter's Dome or Castle Rock 
or Niagara or Yosemite or Chelan or Mt. " Takhoma," 
this scene of JVIultnomah Falls with its surroundings 
wears that aspect of eternity, that look of final per- 
fectness, which marks the great works of nature and 
of art. The cliff almost overhangs, so that except 
when deflected by the wind against a projecting ledge 
the water leaps sheer through the air its eight hun- 
dred feet of fall. It is mainly spray when it reaches 
the deep pool within the recess of the mountain, and 
from that recess the regathered waters pour in a final 
plunge, from which the stream takes its way through 
the cottonwoods to the River. 

We disembark and climb to the pool which receives 
the great fall. We find it sunless and almost black 
in hue from the intensity of the shadows. The maiden- 
hair fern which grows at the edge of the pool is nearly 
white in its cool dark abode. The water falls into the 
pool with a weird, uncanny " chug," rather than a 
splash, so great is the sheer fall and so largely does 
the water consist of spray alternating with " chunks " 
— if we may so express it — of water. The pool is 
large enough to hold a steamboat and of considerable 
depth. A pretty rustic bridge spans the gorge through 
which the stream passes on its way from the pool, and 
below the bridge is the final fall of seventy-five feet. 
On account of its proximity to Portland and the fre- 
quent steamboat excursions, IMultnomah has become 
quite a resort. While the creek is only of moderate 
size in summer, and the fall is notable rather for 




Multnomah Falls, 620 Feet High, on South Side of Columbia 

River about Thirty-five Miles above Portland. 

Photo, by E. H. Moorehouse, Portland. 



The Bridge of the Gods 359 

beauty than energy, j^et when swollen by the rains and 
melting snows of winter and spring it takes on the di- 
mensions of a river. Then the fall hurling its great 
volume over the eight hundred feet of open space 
assumes an appalling sublimity. 

And now with the sounds of the fall ringing in 
our ears and our eyes turned back for a final reluc- 
tant gaze, we make our way across the River and a 
short distance down to the next wonder on the Wash- 
ington side. This is Cape Horn. It is a long pali- 
sade of basalt, not high compared to most of the river 
walls, being only about two hundred feet high, but it 
is the most complete example of continuous basaltic 
formation on the River. The beauty and symmetry 
of the formation, the deeps of the River reflecting the 
escarpment of rock, the wide-opening vista of hazy 
islands and extending plains down-stream; — all these 
together compose a scene unique in itself and, though 
so different, placing Cape Horn in the same galleiy 
of royal pictures which we have been gathering. 

A few miles below Cape Horn it becomes apparent 
that we are about to issue from the mountain pass. 
The heights have fallen aw^ay. Deep vallej^s appear 
and many habitations attest the cultivable character 
of the region. But as if to show that she has not 
exhausted her resources, wonder-working Nature has 
set one more masterpiece in the long line, and this is 
Rooster Rock, with a mighty rampart of rock adjoin- 
ing and closing the southern horizon. Together they 
mark the western limit of the mountains. That 
rampart, which was once well named Cape Eternity, 
though the name does not seem to have been pre- 
served, is a sheer massive precipice of a thousand 



360 The Columbia River 

feet. Though not nearly so high as some of the cliffs 
above, it is not surpassed by any for the appearance 
of solid and massive power. Rooster Rock is dis- 
tinguished by a singular and exquisite beauty, rather 
than magnitude or grandeur. It is only three hund- 
red and fifty feet high, but in form and colour and 
alternation of rock and trees it is one of the most 
beautiful objects on the River. 

With a farewell to Crown Point and Rooster Rock 
we are out of the mountains, and this stage of our 
long journey is at an end. If we were to compare 
the section of the River which we have described 
in this chapter with other great scenes in our country, 
we would say that this section of the Columbia from 
Paha Cliffs to Rooster Rock possesses a greater 
variety than any other. Chelan has loftier cliffs, 
clearer and deeper water, and a certain chaotic and 
elemental energy beyond comparison. The Yellow- 
stone has a greater richness of colouring and larger 
waterfalls, together with the unique features of the 
geysers. Yosemite has loftier waterfalls and cliffs 
that in some respects are even more imposing. Puget 
Sound has finer distant scenes, with lagoons and 
channels and archipelagoes. Each of these grand ex- 
hibitions of nature's works is equal or even superior 
to the Columbia Gorge in some special feature. But 
the River has every feature. It has cliffs and moun- 
tains and waterfalls and cataracts, valleys and forests, 
broad marine views near and distant, colour and form, 
shore and sky, earth and air ^nd water, a comming- 
ling of all elements of beauty, grandeur, and physical 
interest. Add to this, that, up or down, the broad 
waters of the River are accessible to every form of float- 




j 



Cape Horn, Columbia River — Looking Up. 
Photo, by E. H. Moorehouse, Portland. 



The Bridge of the Gods 361 

ing craft, and add yet again the Columbia Scenic High- 
way, and still further that Portland, one of the most 
beautiful and progressive cities of the West, destined 
to become one of the great cities of the world, sits at 
the very gates of admission to this symposium of 
grandeurs and wonders, and we have such an aggre- 
gation of charms that we may well suppose that all the 
other great scenic regions would bow before our great 
River and acknowledge it as the king of all. 



CHAPTER V 
On Volcano and Glacier 

Attractions of our Mountain Peaks — Relations to the Rivers — Loca- 
tions of tlie Greatest and their Positions with Regard to the 
Cities and the Routes of Travel — The Mountain Clubs — The 
Peaks, Especially Belonging to the River: Hood, Adams, and St. 
Helens — A Journey to Hood — Beauty of the Approach through 
Hood River Valley — Lost Lake — Cloud-Cap Inn and Elliot 
Glacier — Extreme Steepness of the Ascent — Magnificence of the 
View — Mt. Adams — The Hunting and Fishing — The Glaciers — ■ 
The Vegetation about the Snow-Line — The Night Storm — Morn- 
ing and the Ascent — Views Around, Up, Down — Ascent by the 
Mazama Club in 1902 and the Transformation Scene — General 
Similarity of Ascent of our Peaks — Zones of a Snow-Peak. 

" Nesika Elatawa Sahale" 

MOST countries have rivers of beauty and gran- 
deur; many have lakes of scenic charm; many 
have hills and mountain chains; but there is 
only one country in the United States that has all of 
these features, and, in addition, a number of isolated 
giant peaks, clad in permanent ice and snow. That 
country is the Pacific North-west. Throughout Ore- 
gon and Washington and extending partly through 
California is a series of volcanic peaks which gather 
within themselves every feature of natural beauty, 
sublimity, and wonder. 

The fifteen most conspicuous of these peaks, be- 
ginning with Baker or Kulshan on the north, and 

362 



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Bridal Veil Falls on Columbia River. 
Photo, by E. H. Moorehouse. 



Side Trip to Some Great Snow-Peaks 363 

ending with Pitt or McLoughlin on the south, are spaced 
at nearly regular intervals of from thirty to fifty miles, 
except for the one group of the Three Sisters, which, 
though distinct peaks, are separated only by narrow 
valleys. Most of these great peaks are somewhat remote 
from the cities or the great routes of public travel, and 
hence are not easily accessible to ordinary tourists. 
None of them, except Hood and Rainier or Tacoma, 
possesses hotel accommodations. The natives are more 
accustomed to " roughing it," and braving the wilder- 
ness than most Eastern people are, and hence many 
parties go annually from the chief cities of Oregon 
and Washington to the great peaks. Some of them, 
as Glacier Peak and Shuksan, are so environed with 
mountain ramparts and almost impassable canons as 
to be practically unknown. The most approachable 
and the most visited are Hood, Rainier, and Adams. 

The greatest influence in organising visits to these 
mountains, and in cultivating an appreciation of them 
among the people of the region, as well as in inform- 
ing the world regarding them, has existed in the 
mountain clubs. The chief of these are the Mazama 
(Wild Goat) Club of Portland and the Mountaineers 
of Seattle. INIembership is not confined to those two 
cities, though mainly located there. The JNIazama 
Club may be called the historic mountain climber's 
club, and it has done incalculable good in fostering 
a love of mountains and in arranging expeditions to 
them. 

The three peaks which may be considered as es- 
pecially belonging to the Columbia River are Plood, 
Adams, and St. Helens. As the traveller on the River 
views the unsullied spires and domes of these gi-eat 



364 The Columbia River 

temples of nature, he longs to worship in their more 
immediate presence. As a logical consequence of this 
sentiment, after having floated down the Columbia 
from The Dalles to Rooster Rock, we feel that life 
would be at least partly in vain if we should fail to 
plant feet on the topmost snows of at least two of 
these great heights. 

We will first visit Hood. Though not the highest, 
this is the boldest and most picturesque of all. More- 
over by reason of its location, seen conspicuously as it 
is from Portland and the Willamette Valley, and be- 
cause of its nearness to the old immigrant road into 
Oregon, Hood was the first noticed, and the most 
often described, painted, and berhymed of any of the 
wintry brotherhood. As the Puget Sound region be- 
came settled, and great cities began to grow up there, 
Mt. Rainier ("Takhoma") began to be a rival in 
popular estimation. When measurements showed that 
Rainier was three thousand feet higher, and Adams 
over one thousand feet higher than the idolised Hood, 
a wail of grief arose from the Oregonians, and for a 
time they could hardly be reconciled. But as they 
became adjusted to the situation, they planted them- 
selves upon the proposition that, though Hood was 
not the highest, it was the most beautiful, and that its 
surroundings were superior to those of any other. 
For this proposition there is much to be said, though, 
in truth, we must accept the dictum of Dogberry that 
" comparisons are odorous " 

The usual approach to ]Mt. Hood by the Hood 
River route is indeed of striking attractiveness. This 
picturesque orchard valley is like an avenue of flowers 
leading to a marble temple. One of the finest points 




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Side Trip to Some Great Snow-Peaks 365 

in the vicinity of Hood River, seldom visited because 
it is off the road and buried in forests, is Lost Lake. 
Perhaps the grandest view of Mt. Hood is from this 
lake. The bold pinnacle, rising out of the broad 
fields of snow, they in turn most wondrously en- 
circled in forests of rich hue, is mirrored in the clear 
water with a perfectness that scarcely can be matched 
among the many lakes of its kind in all the land. In 
these days of swift transit, Hood River keeps up with 
the procession, for there is a regular automobile line 
from the town to Cloud-Cap Inn at the snow-line of 
the great peak, twenty-four miles distant. The dis- 
tance, though it represents a rise of seven thousand 
feet, is traversed all too quickly to fully enjoy the 
valley, filled with its orchards, and rising in regular 
gradation from the heat of the lower end to the bra- 
cing cold of the upper air. In Cloud-Cap Inn the 
traveller may find the daintiest, most unique specimen 
of a mountain resort in our mountains. The Inn is 
owned by a wealthy Portland man, and is maintained 
rather as an attraction to visitors than with the ex- 
pectation of making money. 

From the Inn one can climb in a few minutes to 
Photographer's Point, from which he can look right 
down on the Elliot Glacier, not a large, but an ex- 
ceedingly fine specimen of that most interesting of all 
features of a great peak. 

Hood, though so steep, can be ascended from sev- 
eral points. It was for a long time supposed to be 
unscalable from the north side. But William Lan- 
gille, one of the most daring and successful mountain 
climbers of Oregon, soon found his way up the sharp 
ascent, and, once marked out, that route has been 



366 The Columbia River 

followed by the great majority of climbers. Though 
very steep, there has never been an accident on this 
route except in one case, when a stranger undertook 
the climb alone and never returned. He probably lost 
his footing and fell into a crevasse. With the usual 
precautions of ropes and ice hatchets and caulks, a 
party can make their way over the steep slope, and 
its very steepness makes the ascent quicker and less 
exhaustive than to overcome the longer and more 
gradual ascents of Adams or " Takhoma." While 
it takes but about four or five hours for an average 
party to go from snow-line to summit of Hood, either 
of the other mountains named demands from seven to 
ten hours. 

And having reached the summit, what a view! If 
the day be entirely clear — a rare occurrence — ^you will 
behold a domain for an emj)ire. On the south, the 
long line of the Cascades, with the occasional great 
heights, Jefferson, Three Sisters, Thielson, Diamond, 
Scott, and, if it be very clear, even Pitt. To the north, 
the giant bulk of Adams, the airy symmetry of St. 
Helens, and the lordly majesty of Rainier, rule sky and 
earth, while in mazy undulations the great range, alter- 
nately purple and white, stretches on and on until it 
blends into the clouds. 

Seemingly almost at the feet of the observer, a 
dark green sinuosity amid the timbered hills, now 
strangely flattened, as we stand so high above them, 
marks the course of the River on its march ocean- 
ward. If the day be very clear, a whitish blur far 
westward shows where the " Rose City " on the Willa- 
mette reigns over her fair domains, while a dim 
stretch of varied hues denotes the Willamette Valley. 




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Side Trip to Some Great Snow-Peaks 367 

Some climbers have even asserted that late in the after- 
noon of extremel}" clear days the glint of the western sun 
can be seen uj)on the Pacific, a hundred and fifty miles 
distant. Toward the east lie the vast plains of the 
Inland Empire, marked at their farther limit by the 
soft curves and lazy sw^ells of the range of the Blue 
Mountains. 

While it is an ungracious and even a fruitless un- 
dertaking to compare such objects as the great moun- 
tains or the views from the respective summits, it may 
be said that Hood has one conspicuous feature of the 
view, and that is that it is nearest the centre of the 
great mountain peaks, as well as systems, and also 
best commands the outlook over the great valley sys- 
tems and river systems of this part of the Columbia 
Basin. And therefore, though the view is not equal 
in breadth to that from the summit of Adams or 
Rainier, it is unsurpassed for variety and interest. It 
may be said to cover more history than the view from 
any other peak. Across the southern flank lies the 
old Barlow Road, over which came the greater part 
of the immigration in the days of the ox-team con- 
quest of Oregon in the forties and fifties. Thirty 
miles east is The Dalles with its old fur-trader's sta- 
tion, its old United States fort, its mission station, 
its Indian wars, its early settlement, the most historic 
i^lace in Eastern Oregon. From the old town, during 
x\l the years from the opening of the century, there 
descended the River the trappers, missionaries, immi- 
•fyrants, miners, soldiers, hunters, home-seekers, of a 
^' day, adventurers and promoters of every species, 
ay nothing of the generations of Indians who lived 
!ied along the banks. 



368 The Columbia River 

To the west of our icy eyrie, Portland and Van- 
couver, with the rich valleys around them, represent 
the earliest explorations and developments of the fur- 
traders, as well as the earhest days of the era of per- 
manent settlement. There in the westward haze is the 
little town of Champoeg where the Provisional Gov- 
ernment of Oregon was established. In fact, in what- 
soever direction we may look, we see illustrations of 
the heroic age of Old Oregon, the drama of native 
races, rival powers of Europe and America, the march 
of empire, a section of humanity and the world in the 

making. 

When our visit to Hood is ended we must cross 
the River and traverse another paradise, the White 
Salmon Valley, leading to Mt. Adams, the old In- 
dian Klickitat. Adams is in such a position that 
its true elevation and magnitude cannot be understood 
from Portland or The Dalles or most of the routes of 
travel. Therefore until comparatively recent times it 
was generally supposed that Adams was an insignifi- 
cant mountain in comparison with Hood, which looms 
up with such imposing grandeur from every point 
along the chief highways of commerce. It was dis- 
covered by the Mazama Club in 1896 that Adams 
carried his regal crown at a height of twelve thousand 
four hundred and seventy feet above the level of the 
sea, while the previously established height of Hood 
was only eleven thousand two hundred and twenty- 
five. Since then Adams has been held in much greater 
respect by mountain lovers, and many journeys have 
been made to and on it. 

Around Mt. Adams is a region of caves. As one 
rides through the open glades he may often hear the 




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Side Trip to Some Great Snow-Peaks 369 

ground rumble beneath his horse's hoofs. Mouths of 
Avernus yawn on every side. Some caverns have 
sunken in, leaving serpentine ravines. One cave has 
been traced three miles without finding the end. 
Some of these caves are partially filled with ice. 
There is one in particular, fifteen miles south-west of 
the mountain, which is known as Ice Cave. This is 
very small, not over four hundred feet long, but it 
is a marvel of unique beauty. Its external appear- 
ance is that of a huge well, at whose edge are bunches 
of nodding flowers, and from whose dark depths issue 
sudden chilly gusts. Descending by means of a knotty 
young tree which previous visitors have let down, we 
find ourselves on a floor of ice. The glare of pitch- 
pine torches reveals a w^eird and beautiful scene. A 
perfect forest of icicles of both the stalactite and 
stalagmite forms fills the cave. They are from ten 
to fifteen feet in length and from one to three in 
diameter. From some points of view they look like 
silvered organ-pipes. 

These caves have been formed in some cases by 
chambers of steam or bubbles in the yet pasty rock 
which hardened enough to maintain their form upon 
the condensation of the vapour. Others were doubt- 
less produced by a tongue of lava as it collected slag 
and hardened rock upon its moving edge, rising up 
and curling over like a breaker on the sand. Only 
the " cave of flint " instead of turning into a " re- 
treating cloud " had enough solid matter to sustain 
the arch and so became permanent. Others were no 
doubt formed by pyroducts. A tongue of flowing lava 
hardens on the surface. The interior remains fluid. 
It may continue running until the tongue is all 



2>7^ The Columbia River 

emptied, leaving a cavern. Such a cavern, whose 
upper end reaches the cold air of the mountains, 
might be like a chimney, down which freezing air 
would descend, turning into ice the water that trickled 
into the cave, even at the lower end. 

For sport, the region about Mt. Adams is unsur- 
passed. The elk, three kinds of deer, the magnificent 
mule deer, the black- tail, and the graceful little white- 
tail, two species of bear, the cinnamon and black, the 
daring and ubiquitous mountain goat, quail, grouse, 
pheasants, ducks, and cranes, are among the attractions 
to the hunter. Of late years great bands of sheep have 
driven the game somewhat from the south and east, 
sides. In the grassy glades that encircle the snowy 
pile of Adams no vexatious undergrowth impedes the 
gallop of our fleet cayuse pony or obscures our vision. 
On the background of fragrant greenery the " dun 
deer's hide " is thrown with statuesque distinctness, and 
among the low trees the whirring grouse is easily dis- 
cerned. Nor is the disciple of Nimrod alone consid- 
ered. After our hunt we may move to Trout Lake, 
and here the very ghost of the lamented Walton might 
come as to a paradise. Trout Lake is a shallow pool 
half a mile in length, encircled with pleasant groves 
and grassy glades, marred now, however, by the en- 
croachment of ranches. Into it there come at inter- 
vals from the ice-cold mountain inlet perfect shoals 
of the most gamey and delicious trout. On rafts, or 
the two or three rude skiffs that have been placed 
there, one may find all piscatorial joys and may abun- 
dantly supply his larder free of cost. A few ranches 
here and there furnish accommodations for those who 
are too delicate to rest on the bosom of Mother Earth. 




pS^.'v ■»*' 



Side Trip to Some Great Snow- Peaks 371 

But no extended trip can be taken without committing 
oneself to the wilderness delights of sleeping with 
star-dials for roof and flickering camp-fire for hearth. 
And what healthy human being would exchange those 
for the feverish, pampered life of the modern house? 
Let us have the barbarism, and with it the bounding 
pulses and exuberant life of the wilderness. 

But now, with stomachs and knapsacks filled, and 
with that pervasive sense of contentment which char- 
acterises the successful hunter and angler, we must 
get up our cayuse ponies from their pastures on the 
rich grass of the open woods, saddle up, and then off 
for the mountain, whose giant form now overtops the 
very clouds. About two miles from Trout Lake the 
trail crosses the White Salmon, and we find ourselves 
at the foot of the mountain. For eight miles we fol- 
low a trail through open woods, park-like, with huge 
pines at irregular intervals, and vivid grass and flowers 
between, a fair scene, the native home of every kind 
of game. 

As we journey on delightedly through these glades, 
rising, terrace after terrace, we can read the history 
of the mountain in the rock beneath our feet and the 
expanding plains and hills below. All within the 
ancient amphitheatre is volcanic. There are four main 
summits, a central dome, vast, symmetrical, majestic, 
pure-white against the blue-black sky of its unsullied 
height. The three other peaks are broken crags of 
basalt, leaning as for support against the mighty mass 
at the centre. Around the snow-line of the moun- 
tain many minor cones have been blown up. These 
have the most gaudy and brilliant colouring, mainly 
yellow and vermilion. One on the south-east is es- 



372 The Columbia River 

pecially noticeable. From a deep canon it rises two 
thousand feet as steep as broken scoriae can lie. The 
main part is bright red, surmounted by a circular cliff 
of black rock. Probably the old funnel of the crater 
became filled with black rock, which, cooling, formed 
a solid core. The older material around it having 
crumbled away, it remains a solid shaft. 

But fire has not wrought all the wonders of the 
mighty peak. Ice has been most active. The moun- 
tain was once completely girdled with glaciers. Rocks 
are scratched and grooved five miles below the present 
snow-line. The ridges are strewn with planed rocks 
and glacial shavings and coarse sand. Some of the 
monticules on the flanks of the mountain have been 
partially cut away. Many have been entirely oblit- 
erated. But the ice has now greatly receded. In- 
stead of a complete enswathement of ice there are 
some six or seven distinct glaciers, separated by sharp 
ridges, while the region formerly the chief home of the 
ice is now a series of Alpine meadows. Like most of 
the snow peaks, Mt. Adams is rudely terraced, and the 
terraces are separated into compartments by ridges, 
forming scores and hundreds of glades and meads. In 
some of these are circular ponds, from a few square rods 
to several acres in area. These lakes are found by the 
hundred around the mountain and in the region north 
of it. They are one of the charms and wonders of 
the country. About most of them tall grass crowds 
to the very edge of the water. Scattered trees diver- 
sify the scene. Throughout these glades flow in- 
numerable streams, descending from level to level in 
picturesque cascades, and composed of water so cold 
and sparkling that the very memory of it cools the 




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Side Trip to Some Great Snow-Peaks 373 

after thirst. Sometimes the tough turf grows clear 
over, making a verdant tunnel through which " the 
tinkling waters slip." Here and there streams spout 
full-grown from frowning precipices. 

But we are not content to stand below and gaze 
" upward to that height." We must needs ascend. 
In climbing a snow peak a great deal depends on 
making camp at a good height and getting a very 
early start. By a little searching one may find good 
camping places at an elevation of seven thousand or 
even eight thousand feet altitude. This leaves only 
four thousand or five thousand feet to climb on the 
great day, and by starting at about four o'clock a 
party may have sixteen hours of daylight. This is 
enough, if there be no accidents, to enable any sound 
man of average muscle, — or woman either, if she be 
properly dressed for it, — to gain the mighty dome of 
Adams. 

At the time of our last ascent we camped high on 
a great ridge on the south side of the mountain, hav- 
ing for shelter a thick copse of dwarf firs. So fiercely 
had the winds of centuries swept this exposed point 
that the trees did not stand erect, but lay horizontal 
from west to east. 

With pulses bounding from the exhilarating air, 
and our whole systems glowing with the exercise and 
the wild game of the preceding week, we stretched our- 
selves out for sleep, while the stars blazed from infinite 
heights, and our uneasy camp-fire strove fitfully with 
the icy air which at nightfall always slides down the 
mountain side. 

Sweet sleep till midnight, and then we found our- 
selves awake all at once with a unanimity which at 



374 The Columbia River 

first we scarcely understood, but which a moment's 
observation made clear enough. A regular mountain 
gale had suddenly broken upon us. It had waked us 
up by nearly blowing us out of bed. Our camp-fire 
was aroused to newness of life by the gale, and the 
huge fire-brands flew down the mountain side, igniting 
pitchy thickets, until a fitful glare illuminated the 
lonely and savage grandeur of the scene. The whole 
sky seemed in motion. Then a cloud struck us. 
Night, glittering as she was a moment before with 
her tiaras of stars, was suddenly transformed into a 
dull, whitish blur. The vapour formed at once into 
thick drops on the trees and was precipitated in turn 
on us. Occasional sleet and snowflakes struck us with 
almost the sting of flying sand when we ventured to 
peep out. Covering ourselves up, heads and all, we 
crowded against each other and grimly went to sleep. 

We woke again, chattering with cold, to find it 
perfectly calm. The morning star was blazing over 
the spot where day was about to break. The skj^ was 
absolutely clear, not a mote on its whole concavity. 
The wind had swept and burnished it. The moun- 
tain towered above us cold and sharp as a crystal. 
There was a still, solemn majesty about it in the keen 
air and early light which struck us with a thrill of 
fear. The light just before daybreak is far more 
exact than the scarlet splendour of morning or the 
blinding blaze of noon. The world below us was a 
level sea of clouds. We seemed to be on an island 
of snow and rock, or on a small planetoid winging its 
own way in space. Yet beyond the puncturing top 
of a few of the Simcoe peaks a wavering line that 
just touched the glowing eastern sky, told of clear 



Side Trip to Some Great Snow-Peaks 375 

weather a hundred leagues up the basin of the Colum- 
bia. Out of the ocean of cloud, the great peaks of 
Hood and St. Helens rose, cold and white, like icebergs 
on an Ai'ctic sea. 

Coffee, ham, and hardtack, and then out on the 
ice and snow, just as the first warm flush of morning 
is gilding the mighty mass above us. The snow, hard- 
ened by the freezing morning, affords excellent foot- 
ing, and in the sharp, bracing air we feel capable of any 
effort. We gain the summit of a bright red knob, one 
of the secondar}'^ volcanoes that girdle the mountain. 
At its peak are purple stones piled up like an altar, 
as indeed it is, though the incense from it is not of 
human kindling. The sun is not fairly up, but from 
below the horizon it splits the hemisphere of the sky 
into a hundred segments by its auroral flashes. And 
now we begin to climb a volcanic ridge, rising like a 
huge stairway, with blocks of stone as large as a 
piano. This is a tongue of lava, very recent, inso- 
much that it shows no glacial markings, and yet 
enough soil has accumulated upon it to support vege- 
tation. It can be seen, a dull red river, three hun- 
dred yards wide, extending far down the mountain 
side. How well the old Greek poet described the 
process that must have taken place here : " ^Etna, 
pillar of heaven, nurse of snow, with fountains of fire; 
a river of fire, bearing down rocks with a crashing 
sound to the deep sea." 

The ridge becomes very steep, at an angle of prob- 
ably thirty-five or forty degrees, and we climb on all 
fours from one rock to another. At last we draw our- 
selves up a huge wedge of phonolite and find our- 
selves at the summit of the first peak. Six hundred 



376 The Columbia River 

yards beyond, muffled in white silence, rises the great 
dome. It is probably five hundred feet higher than 
the first peak. To reach it we climb a bare, steep 
ridge of shaly, frost-shattered rock, in which we sink 
ankle deep, a difficult and even painful task with the 
laboured breathing of twelve thousand feet altitude. 

But patience conquers, and at about noon, seven 
hours and a half from the time of starting, we stand 
on the very tip of the mountain. Ten minutes panting 
in the cold wind and then we are ready to look around. 
Within the circle of our vision is an area for an em- 
pire. Northward is a wilderness of mountains. High 
above all, Mt. Rainier lifts his white crown unbroken 
to the only majesty above him, the sky. The west- 
ern horizon, more hazy than the eastern, is punctu- 
ated by the smooth dome and steely glitter of Mt. St. 
Helens. Far southward, across a wilderness of broken 
heights, rises the sharp pinnacle of Mt. Hood, and far 
beyond that, its younger brother, Jefferson. Still be- 
yond, are the Alpine peaks of the Three Sisters, nearly 
two hundred miles distant. Our vision sweeps a cir- 
cle whose diameter is probably five hundred miles. 
Far westward the white haze betokens the presence of 
the sea. A deep blue line north-westward, far beyond 
the smooth dome of St. Helens, stands for Puget 
Sound. Numerous lakes gleam in woody solitudes. 

Having looked around, let us now look down. On 
the eastern side the mountain breaks off in a mon- 
strous chasm of probably four thousand feet, most of 
it perpendicular. We crawl as we draw near it. Ly- 
ing down in turn, secured by ropes held behind, fear- 
ful as much of the mystic attraction of the abyss as 
of the slippery snow, we peep over the awful verge. 




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Side Trip to Some Great Snow-Peaks 377 

Take your turn, gentle reader, if you would know 
what it seems to gaze down almost a mile of nearly 
perpendicular distance. Points of rock jut out from 
the pile and eye us darkly. That icy floor nearly a 
mile below us is the Klickitat glacier. From beneath 
it a milk-white stream issues and crawls off amid the 
rocky desolation. At the very edge of the great preci- 
pice stands a cone of ice a hundred feet high. Green, 
blue, yellow, red, and golden, the colours play with 
the circling sunbeams on its slippery surface, until 
one is ready to believe that here is where rainbows are 
made. We roll some rocks from a wind-swept point, 
and then shudder to see them go. They are lost to 
the eye as their noise to the ear, long before they 
cease to roll. Silence reigns. There is no echo. The 
thin air makes the voice sound weak. Our loudest 
shouts are brief bubbles of noise in the infinite space. 
A pistol shot is only a puff of powder. Even the 
rocks we set off are swallowed up and we get no re- 
sponse but the first reluctant clank as they grind the 
lip of the precipice. Nor do we care much for boisterous 
sounds. We are impelled rather to silence and worship. 
But now once more to earth and camp! For pure 
exhilaration, commend me to descending a snow peak. 
For a good part of Mt. Adams one may descend in 
huge jumps through the loose scoriae and volcanic 
ashes. Some of the way one may slide on the crusty 
snow, a perfect whiz of descent. How the thin wind 
cuts past us, and how our frames glow with the dizzy 
speed! Such a manner of descent is not altogether 
safe. As we are going in one place with flying jumps 
on the softening snow, a chasm suddenly appears be- 
fore us. It looks ten feet wide, and how deep, no one 



378 The Columbia River 

could guess. To stop is out of the question. We 
make a wild bound and clear it, catching a momen- 
tary glance into the bluish-green crack as we fly 
across. We make the descent in an incredibly short 
time, only a little more than an hour, whereas it took 
us over seven hours to ascend. And then the rest 
and mighty feasts of camp, and the abundant and 
mountainous yarns, and the roaring camp-fire, whose 
shadows flicker on the solemn snow-fields, until the 
stars claim the heavens, and, while the wailing cry of 
the cougars rises from a jungle far below us, we sleep 
and perform again in dreams the day's exploits. 

Of all scenes in connection with Mt. Adams, the 
most remarkable in all the experience of those who 
witnessed it, and one of those rare combinations which 
the sublimest asj)ects of nature afford, was at the time 
of the outing of the Mazama Club in 1902. The 
party had reached the summit in a dense fog, cold, 
bitter, forbidding, and nothing whatever to be seen. 
All was a dull, whitish blur. In the bitter chill the 
enthusiasm of some of the climbers evaporated and 
they turned away down the snowy waste. Others re- 
mained in the hope of a vanishing of the cloud-cap. 
And suddenly their hopes were realised. A mar- 
vellous transformation scene was unveiled like the 
lifting of a vast curtain. The cloud-cap was split 
asunder. The great red and black pinnacles of the 
summit sprung forth from the mist like the first lines 
in a developing photographic plate. Then the glisten- 
ing tiaras and thrones of ice and snow caught the 
gleams of the unveiled sun, and lo, there we stood in 
mid-heaven, seemingly upon an island in space, with no 
earth about us, just the sun and the sky above and 



Side Trip to Some Great Snow-Peaks 379 

a great swaying ocean of fog below. But now sud- 
denly that ocean of fog was rent and split. The 
ardent sun burned and banished it away. Mountain 
peak after peak caught the glory. Range after range 
seemed to rise and stand in battle array. The trans- 
formation was complete. A moment before we were 
swathed in the densest cloud-cap, blinded with the 
fog. Now we were standing on a mount of trans- 
figuration, with a new world below us. Every vestige 
of smoke or fog was gone. We could see the shimmer 
of the ocean to the west, the glistening bands of Puget 
Sound and the Columbia. Far eastward the plains of 
the Inland Empire lay palpitating in the July sun. 
The whole long line of the great snow-peaks of the 
Cascades were there revealed, the farthest a mere speck, 
yet distinctly discernible, two hundred miles distant. 
One unaccustomed to the mountains w^ould not believe 
it possible that such an area could be caught within 
the vision from a single point. 

It may be understood that the description of one 
of our great snow-peaks is, in general terms, a descrip- 
tion of all. With every one there are the same azure 
skies, the same snow-caps, the same crevassed and 
glistening rivers of ice, the same long ridges with their 
intervening grassy and flowery meads, purling streams, 
and reflecting lakes. With the name of each there 
rises before INIazama or Mountaineer the remembrance 
of the camp of clouds or stars upon the edge of snow- 
bank, the sound of the bugle at two o'clock in the 
morning of the great climb, the hastily swallowed 
breakfast of coffee and ham, while climbers stand 
shivering around the flickering morning fire, the ap- 
proaching day with its banners of crimson behind the 



380 The Columbia River 

heights, the daubing of faces with grease-paint and 
the putting on of goggles, amid shouts of laughter 
from each at the grotesque and picturesque ugliness 
of all the others, then the hastily grasped alpenstocks, 
the forming in line, and at about four oclock, while 
the first rays of the sun are gilding the summit, the 
word of command and the beginning of the march. 

Each great peak has its zones, so significant that 
each seems a world in itself. There is first the zone 
of summer with its fir and cedar forests at the base of 
the peak, from a thousand feet to twenty-five hund- 
red above sea-level. In the case of most of our great 
peaks this zone consists of long gentle slopes and 
dense forests, with much undergrowth, though on the 
eastern sides there are frequently wide-open spaces of 
grassy prairie. Then comes the zone of pine forest 
and summer strawberry, with its fragrant air and 
long glades of grass and open aisles of columned 
trees, " God's first temples," pellucid streams babbling 
over pebbles and white sands, and occasionally falling 
in cascades over ledges of volcanic rock. This zone 
rises in terraces which attest the ancient lava flow, at 
an increasing grade over the first, though at most 
points one might still drive a carriage through the 
open pine forests. Then comes the third zone, a zone 
of parks. The large pine trees now give way to the 
belts of subalpine fir and mountain pine and larch, ex- 
quisite for beauty, enclosing the parks and grouped 
here and there in clumps like those in some old baron- 
ial estate of feudal times. This is the zone of rhodo- 
dendron, shushula, phlox, and painted brush. Through 
the open glades the ptarmigan and deer wander, 
formerly unafraid of man, but now, alas, under the 




Rooster Rock, Columbia River — Looking Up. 
Photo, by E. H. Moorehouse, Portland. 



Side Trip to Some Great Snow- Peaks 381 

ban of civilisation. The upward slope has now in- 
creased to twenty or twenty-five degrees, and to a 
party of climbers a frequent rest and the quaffing of 
the ice-cold stream that dashes through the woods 
afford a happy feature of the ascent. At the upper 
edge of this zone, at an elevation of probably seven 
thousand feet, beside some dashing stream or some 
clear pool, fed from the snows above, is the place for 
the camp. And such a camp! Oh, the beauty of 
such an unspoiled spot! 

It is from such a camp at the upper edge of the 
paradise zone that a party sets forth at the four 
o'clock hour to attain the highest. So the march on 
the great day of a final climb carries us at once into 
a fourth zone. This is the zone of avalanche and 
glacier, the zone of elemental fury and warfare, a zone 
of ever-steepening ascent, thirty degrees, a zone of 
almost winter cold at night, but with such a dazzling 
brightness and fervour in the day as turns the snow- 
banks to slush and sends the fountains tearing and 
cutting across the glaciers and triturating the moraines. 
Vegetation has now almost ceased, though the heather 
still drapes the ledges on the eastern or southern ex- 
posures, and occasionally one of the tenacious moun- 
tain pines upholds the banner of spring in some 
sheltered nook. This wind-swept and storm-lashed 
zone is also the zone of the wild goats and mountain 
sheep. On the precipitous ridges and along the nar- 
row ledges at the margin of glaciers they can be seen 
bounding away at the ajoproach of the party, sure- 
footed and swift at points where the nerve of the 
best human climber might fail. This zone carries the 
climbers to ten or eleven thousand feet of elevation 



382 The Columbia River 

on the highest peaks. And here is the place for the 
Mountaineers and Mazamas to take the half-hour rest 
on their arduous march. A sweet rest it is. We pick 
out some sheltered place on the eastern slope, and 
stretch ourselves at full length on the warm rocks, 
while the icy wind from the summit goes hurtling 
above us. And how good the chocolate and the malted 
milk and the prunes and raisins of the scanty lunch 
taste, while we rest and feel the might of elemental 
nature again fill our veins and lungs and hearts. 

But then comes a fifth zone, the last, the zone of 
the Arctic. This is the zone of the snow-cap. The 
glaciers are now below. All life has ceased. The 
grade has ever steepened, till now it is forty degrees 
or more. The snow is hummocked and granulated. 
Here is where part of the climbers begin to stop. 
Legs and lungs fail. Camp looks exceedingly good 
down there at the verge of the forests. They feel as 
though they had lost nothing on the summit worth 
going up for. A nausea, mountain sickness, attacks 
some. Nosebleed attacks others. Things look serious. 
Icy mists sometimes begin to swirl around the pre- 
sumptous climbers. Frost gathers on hair and mus- 
tache and eyebrows. The unaccustomed or the less 
ambitious or weaker lose heart and bid the rest go 
on, for they will turn toward a more summer-like 
clime. Generally about half an ordinary party drop 
out at this beginning of the Arctic zone. But the rest 
shout " Excelsior," take a firmer grasp of alpenstock, 
stamp feet more vehemently into the snow, and with 
dogged perseverance move step by step up the final 
height. Inch by inch, usually in the teeth of a biting 
gale, leaning forward, and panting heavily, they force 




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Side Trip to Some Great Snow-Peaks 383 

the upward way. And victory at last! There comes 
a time when we are on the topmost pinnacle, and there 
is nothing above us but the storms and sun. And 
then what elation! Nothing seems quite to equal the 
pure delight of such a triumph of lungs and legs and 
heart and will. 



CHAPTER VI 

The Lower River and the Ocean Tides 

Remarkable Change in Climate and Topography — Farms and Villages 
— First View of Mt. Hood on West Side — Vancouver and its 
Historic Interest — The North Bank Railroad — View at the Mouth 
of the Willamette — Sauvie's or Wapatoo Island — Beauty of the 
Willamette and its Tributaries — Simpson's Poem — Approach to 
Portland — Site of Portland — Transportation Facilities — Port- 
land's Commerce — Homes and Public Buildings — Art in Portland 
— The Historical Society Museum — The Oregonian and its 
Editor — Once more on the River — The Fishing and Lumbering 
Villages — Scenery of the Lower River — Astoria and the Outlook 
to the Ocean — Industries of Astoria — The Fisheries — The Fleet 
of Fishing Boats on the Bar — The Ocean Beaches and the Tourist 
Travel — Through the Outer Headlands to the Pacific. 

HAVING returned from our side trip to the 
mountain peaks of Hood and Adams and 
having resumed our station on the bank of 
the River just below Rooster Rock, we see that we 
are now in a new world. We are at sea-level. Dense 
forests clothe the shores, except for the places where 
the axe of the settler or the saws of the lumberman 
have made inroads. Moss drapes the rocks. Ferns 
and vines take possession wherever the trees have been 
removed. Even in summer a feeling of humidity 
usually pervades the air. A certain softness and 
roundness seems to characterise both the vegetable 
and animal world. The smell of the sea is in the atmo- 
sphere, even though the sea is yet distant. No longer 

384 




Sunrise on Columbia River, near Washougal. 
(Copyright, 1902, by Kiser Photograph Co.) 



The Lower River and the Ocean Tides 385 

do our eyes wander over boundless expanses of rolling 
prairie, crowned to the highest knolls with wheat- 
fields, as on the other side of the mountains. The 
mountains fall away, and low bottoms, sometimes oozj'^ 
with the inflowing river or the creeks from the forests, 
stretch away in the lazy, hazy distance. The River 
no longer flows tumultuously and with that militant 
energy which is so characteristic of the long stretches 
from Kettle Falls to The Dalles. It has a calm and 
stately majesty, the repose of accomplished warfare 
and victory. It has hewn its way down to the level 
of the ocean and no longer needs to fret and storm. 
It has conquered a peace. 

Below Rooster Rock, the shores are flats with low 
hills in the background, and the River expands to a 
width of from one to two miles. If we still imagine 
ourselves in a small boat, we find the most delightful 
of sensations in gliding past the grassy islands and 
shores thick with fir or cottonwood. Or if we choose 
to take our way to one of the elegant steamers, 
Spencer or Bailey Gatzert, we shall still partake of 
the same life and feel the same sense of repose and 
contentment which belong by natural right to this 
portion of the River. 

Soon after leaving Rooster Rock, we begin to pass 
frequent pleasant farms on either bank. On the 
Washington side we see two pretty villages, Wash- 
ougal and La Camas. The first has the historical 
distinction of being at or nearl}^ at the highest spot 
reached by the English explorer Broughton in 1792, 
and named by him Point Vancouver. La Camas is 
the location of the most extensive paper mills in the 
North-west. 



386 The Columbia River 

If, while we are in this section of the River and 
our eyes are bent eagerly forward to catch the ever- 
changing shore and river lines, we happen to glance 
backward, our gaze is fastened as with a magnet, and 
for a moment utterance fails. For what do we see? 
Glistening white, ethereal, Mt. Hood rises before us, 
a vision which, of the many mountain visions that we 
have seen, seems the most beautiful. Mt. Hood in- 
deed is the background of many a noble scene upon 
the River, but there is none quite equal in amplitude, 
in variety, to this, — River, forest, shore, foreground of 
timbered hills. Cascade Gorge, distant white and pur- 
ple chain of Cascade Mountains, and the volcanic cone 
overtopping and overawing all. This view of Mt. 
Hood from the vicinity of La Camas has perhaps 
been oftener the subject of painting than any other. 

A few miles below La Camas we reach the most 
historic and perhaps the most beautiful spot upon the 
Columbia, Vancouver. As the capital for twenty 
years of the Hudson's Bay Company's Fur Empire, 
associated with the name of Dr. John JNIcLoughlin, 
the centre of almost every event of importance in the 
early history, connected with both American and Brit- 
ish occupation, and later as the location of the United 
States military post and preserving the names of 
Grant, Sheridan, McClellan, Hooker, and others of 
our famous generals, Vancouver has indeed a rich his- 
toric setting. But aside from such associations with 
the past, every tourist must note the location of Van- 
couver as one of rare beauty. In fact, the spot is 
almost ideal for a great city. The splendid River, a 
mile and a half in width, offers limitless facilities for 
shipping, while, beginning at the water's edge, a 




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The Lower River and the Ocean Tides 387 

gradually rising slope of land extends in a superb 
swell several miles to the north. Every feature of 
scenery that could delight the eye — Mt. Hood with 
the Cascades to the east, the Willamette Valle}^ to the 
south, the Portland and Scappoose hills to the west, 
the River blending all — seems to have been lavished 
on Vancouver. It has been a surprise to many that 
the great city had not grown here rather than at 
Portland, which, though on an equally fine location, 
is on the tributary and much smaller Willamette. 
The chief reasons of this were the nearer proximity of 
Portland to the rich farming country of the Tualatin 
and the presence in the Columbia a mile below Van- 
couver of a sand-bar which embarrassed shipping. 
This is now removed. 

At Vancouver the newly-built " North Bank " 
Kailroad (Spokane, Portland, and Seattle) has con- 
structed across the Columbia a bridge a mile and three 
quarters in length, said to be the largest and costliest 
of its kind in the world. This same railroad has also 
bridged the Willamette a few miles west of Van- 
couver, thus effecting an entrance to Portland. This 
railroad is one of the most interesting and remarkable 
undertakings of the age. It is said that its cost from 
Spokane to Portland exceeded forty million dollars. 
Vancouver expects much from this road, even antici- 
pating that much of the shipping hitherto centring in 
Portland will be diverted to the larger river. How- 
ever that may prove, it is plain that Vancouver has 
the promise as well as the memory of great things. 

Six miles west of Vancouver is one of those im- 
posing scenes in which our River so abounds. This 
is the junction of the Willamette with the Columbia. 



388 The Columbia River 

This spot was noted by Broughton in 1792 as one of 
exceptional beauty, and to it he attached the name 
Belle Vue Point. It is indeed a combination of both 
historical and scenic interest. The Willamette steals 
shyly and coquettishly through green islands to fall 
into the strong arms of the Columbia. The west- 
ern arm of the Willamette, commonly called the 
" Slough," joins the Columbia eighteen miles below at 
the picturesque little town of St. Helens. Between 
the Columbia and the Slough lies Sauvie's Island, 
named from a Hudson's Bay man, and famous through- 
out Hudson's Bay times as well as Indian times. The 
island was the seat of power of the Multnomah tribe. 
The scene of the book known as the Bridge of the 
Gods by Frederick Balch is mainly upon this island, 
and in that book will be found some glowing descrip- 
tions of this beauty spot. To the Indians it was 
known as Wapatoo Island. In the ponds grew the 
plant called the wapatoo, an onion-like root, very 
nutritious and palatable, and, with salmon, constituting 
the chief food of the natives. Not only so, but the 
Multnomah Indians used the wapatoo as a com- 
mercial stock, carrying on regular trade with both 
the coast and the up-river tribes. 

According to the early explorers there were great 
annual fairs on Wapatoo Island, when Indians from 
ocean beach, from valley, from mountains, and from 
River, both up and down, would gather to exchange 
products, to gamble, race horses and boats, and have 
a general period of hilarity and good fellowship. 

The gathering of the wapatoos devolved upon 
the patient "klootchmen" (women) of the tribe. 
They would go out in canoes to the shallow water 




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The Lower River and the Ocean Tides 389 

where the roots grew and then, stripping naked, would 
hang over the side of the boat and dislodge the wapa- 
toos with their toes from the soft mud. Soon the sur- 
face would be covered with the floating roots. The 
squaws would gather these into the canoes. Then 
they would move to another place for another load. 
Sometimes they would spend almost the whole day in 
the water. The wapatoo still grows in the ponds 
and lagoons of the island. These ponds formerly 
abounded in ducks and geese and cranes and swans. 
Even yet there is fine hunting. During the damp 
soft days of the Oregon winter, the Nimrods of 
Portland betake themselves thither in great numbers. 

From the steamer, as we enter the mouth of the 
Willamette, or from the greater elevation of the light- 
house, one may command one of the lordliest views 
that even this land of lordly views affords. Five 
snow-peaks, Hood, Rainier-Tacoma, St. Helens, 
Adams, and Jefferson, rise snow white from the pur- 
ple forests of the Cascade Range. Up the Columbia 
the great gorge through which we have passed stands 
open to view, while down-river the sinuous and hazy 
lines of low-lying shore betoken the nearer proximity 
of the ocean. Up the Willamette, enchanting islands, 
with low watery shores, occupy the foreground, while 
a short distance back from the western bank, a chain 
of picturesque hills, heavily timbered, encloses the 
vista. On the east side a low bench with bluffy pro- 
montories, crowned with the beautiful smooth-barked 
madrona tree, rises from the green meadows. 

If we could, from so fair an entrance, ascend the 
Willamette to its source in the Cascade INIountains 
two hundred miles away, and if we could turn into 



390 The Columbia River 

the Tualatin, the Yamliill, the Clackamas, the Molalla, 
the La Creole, the Santiam, the Calapooia, affluents 
worthy of union with the Willamette, and if we could 
tarry among the vales and meadows and oak-crowned 
hills and distant Coast and Cascade ranges of mount- 
ains, all across that superb valley, fifty miles wide by 
a hundred and fifty long, as beautiful as Greece or 
Italy, — we should then all agree that the Willamette 
deserves a volume by itself and that it is almost a 
crime to introduce it so briefly here. Every old Ore- 
gonian, in thinking of the Willamette, at once asso- 
ciates it with the apostrophe to it by S. L. Simpson, 
the gifted and unfortunate poet of Oregon, whose 
genius deserved a wider recognition than it ever re- 
ceived. The first stanza of his poem is this : 

From the Cascades' frozen gorges, 
Leaping like a child at play, 
Winding, widening through the valley, 
Bright Willamette glides away. 

Onward ever, lovely River, 

Softly calling to the sea, 
Time that scars us, maims and mars us, 
Leaves no track or trench on thee. 

And now that we have fairly entered the Willa- 
mette, it becomes speedily evident that we are in the 
near vicinity of a large and prosperous city. Steam- 
boats, an occasional steamship, sailing ships, sometimes 
huge four-masted steel ships towed by coughing 
tugs, long booms of logs in tow of some spluttering 
stern-wheeler, scows of every description, gasoline 
launches, rowboats, — a motley fleet, they seem to be 
making they way with all possible haste upon the 
stream. 




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The Lower River and the Ocean Tides 391 

We are indeed approaching Portland, the metro- 
pohs of the Columbia, the "Rose City," in many 
respects the most interesting and attractive of Western 
cities. The approach to Portland is one hard to 
match for stately beauty. The city occupies both 
sides of the Willamette, the main business part on 
the west side, but the larger residence part on the east. 

The first settler on the original site of Portland 
was William Overton. Messrs. Lownsdale, Chapman, 
and Love joy bought him out. Then Captain John 
H. Couch in 1845 located a donation land claim on 
what is now the northern part of the west side city. 
At that time the site was somewhat cut up with 
gulches and clothed in the densest of dense forests, 
with perfect jungles of every species of undergrowth. 
But duller eyes than those of the gallant mariners. 
Couch, Flanders, Ainsworth, Pettygrove, and Love- 
joy, could have seen beneath the tangled thickets the 
making of a city, though it may well be questioned 
whether even they, in their wildest flights of fancy, ever 
pictured the scene of to-day, where the city of these 
sixty years' building now sits, a queen upon her cir- 
chng throne of hills. The location of Portland is 
almost ideal. The hills to the west rise to a height 
of about eight hundred feet, but many fine homes 
are located there, and car lines cross the hills in many 
directions. Above the fogs and smoke these high- 
line homes have every possible charm. On the east 
side of the Willamette the land is a level bench with 
limitless room for expansion. There are a few pic- 
turesque elevations on the east side, as Mt. Tabor and 
Mt. Scott, and these have been used for homes with 
the taste which characterises the entire city. 



392 The Columbia River 

Portland is the centre of every species of trans- 
portation facility. It has one of the most extensive 
and well-equipped electric railway systems in the 
United States. In addition to the urban lines, there 
are interurban lines in every direction, to Vancouver, 
Troutdale, Oregon City, Milwaukee, Hillsboro, and 
Salem, the last named the capital of the State and 
fifty miles distant. We find also that four transcon- 
tinental railroads have a terminus in Portland, the 
Southern Pacific, the Northern Pacific, the Union 
Pacific, and the Great Northern. Steamship lines run 
to Alaska, Puget Sound, San Francisco and other 
California ports, to all the coastwise ports of Oregon, 
to the Hawaiian Islands and the Orient, and to Mex- 
ico and South America. Sailing ships convey the 
products of the North-west to all the ports of the 
world. 

As a result of these facilities for commerce we find 
such figures as the following: During the year 1907 
there entered and cleared at Portland twelve hundred 
and twenty ocean-going vessels, registering more than 
1,700,000 tons, net, and with a carrying capacity of 
3,500,000 tons. In the cargoes of this total, were 
175,000,000 feet of lumber and 18,000,000 bushels of 
wheat, flour included. Portland has in fact reached 
the front rank as a wheat and flour shipping port, be- 
ing in the class with Galveston and New York, some 
of the time having led both of them. In December, 
1907, Portland's record of wheat shipments, exclusive 
of flour, was 3,000,000 bushels. The Bureau of Sta- 
tistics of the Department of Commerce and Labor 
gave the value of all breadstuffs shipped from Port- 
land for the eleven months ending November 30, 1907, 



The Lower River and the Ocean Tides 393 

at $10,536,234. During the same period the shipments 
of the same commodities from San Francisco totalled 
$4,143,592, while from the three Puget Sound ports 
of Seattle, Tacoma, and Everett, the aggregate was 
$13,989,178. During November, 1908, there were 
shipped 903,000 bushels of wheat, 180,145 barrels of 
flour, 209,246 bushels of barley, and 9,752,552 feet of 
lumber. During the year 1908 the value of wheat 
and flour reached a total of $18,340,405, while the 
lumber exports aggregated 162,089,998 feet. 

Perhaps the most gratifying feature of the ship- 
ping trade to Portland people has been the increase 
in the size of ships entering the River. In 1872 the 
average wheat cargo exported was 33,615 bushels, 
while now it is four times as much. The record cargo 
was that of the British bark Andorinha, in the fall of 
1908, 189,282 bushels. The channel from Portland 
to the Columbia Bar and that across the Bar have 
so much improved that no lightering was necessary 
during the year 1908, and ships of twenty-five 
and twenty-six feet draft have gone from Port- 
land to the ocean without difficulty. In connection 
with this fact we are told that in June, 1907, the 
International Sailing-ship Owners' Union abolished 
the differential of thirty cents per ton which had 
stood for some years against Portland. These con- 
ditions, together with the completion of the North 
Bank Railroad, by which a greatly added traffic from 
the Inland Empire will be turned to Portland, seem 
to indicate that Portland is on the direct road to a 
greater commercial leadership than she has yet known. 
The lumber industry centring in Portland is as re- 
markable as that of grain. Oregon's available forests. 



394 The Columbia River 

according to Government estimates, reach a total of 
three hundred billion feet, board measure. It is es- 
timated that during the years 1906-8 the lumber 
cut in Oregon reached about two billion feet each 
year, of which about one fifth was sawed in Port- 
land. It is asserted, in fact, that Portland is 
the largest lumber producing city in the world. 
Lumbermen believe that it is only a question of a 
few years when Portland will cut a billion feet of 
lumber a year. While grain and lumber are the 
great articles of export from Portland, there are vast 
totals of fruit, hay, live-stock, dairy and poultry pro- 
ducts, fish, and manufactured articles of many kinds. 
To the thoughtful traveller it is of more interest 
to see the use made of wealth than the wealth itself. 
Portland now has about two hundred and eighty 
thousand people, said to have more per capita wealth 
than any other city, with two exceptions, in the United 
States. What are these people doing with their ac- 
cumulations .^^ For answer the traveller visits the 
schools, the public buildings, the churches, the stores, 
the places of amusement, the homes, and he finds 
every evidence of taste, good judgment, refinement, 
and artistic skill. The Portland Hotel, the Oregonian 
building, the Marquam Grand Theatre, the Marquam 
building, the Chamber of Commerce building, the 
Corbett block, the Wells-Fargo building, the First 
Congregational, Presbyterian, Catholic, and Baptist 
churches and Jewish Synagogue, the Union Depot, 
the City Hall, the City Library, — these and many 
other structures challenge the admiration of travellers 
from even the best-built cities of the East. During 
the year 1907, building permits were issued to an 



i 



The Lower River and the Ocean Tides 395 

amount exceeding nine miUion dollars, of which nearly 
half was expended for dwelling houses. Portland is 
indeed a city of homes, and workingmen own their own 
houses to an unusual degree. 

As the visitor traverses Portland's streets, he sees 
amply demonstrated the propriety of the cognomen, 
the " Rose City." Almost every yard boasts its roses, 
and on almost every porch the scarlet rambler or 
some other climber casts its rich colouring. Soil and 
climate are said to produce an ideal combination for 
the finest grades of roses, as well as of many other 
species of flowers. The Portland Fair of 1905 was 
the means of beautifying a section of the city near 
Macleay Park. While most of the structures were of 
a temporar}'^ nature, the unique and interesting 
Forestry building has been left, and this is a rare at- 
traction to the Eastern visitor. The two tasteful and 
significant groups of statuary. The Coming of the 
White Men and Sacajawea, were genuine works of 
art. Portland contains many other attractive works of 
art at available points. Among these is the Skidmore 
Fountain, on one of the most crowded thoroughfares 
of the city, a real gem of art. 

No visitor to Portland should fail to visit the City 
Hall and the valuable and interesting historical col- 
lection of the Oregon Historical Society. Mr. George 
H. Himes, the Secretary of the Society, has devoted 
years to the gathering of this museum of pioneer 
relics. Some of them are priceless. Here is the first 
printing press in Oregon, used for some years by 
Rev. H. M. Spalding at the Nez Perce Mission. 
Here is Mrs. Whitman's writing desk. Here is Cap- 
tain Robert Gray's sea-chest. The ages of discovery, of 



396 The Columbia River 

the fur-traders, of the missionaries, of the pioneers, are 
all lived over again in the inspection of these relics. 

Probably most people who have followed the course 
of public thought and action in the West, if asked 
what agency and what man would first come into 
their minds at the mention of the name of Portland, 
would answer at once, — " The Oregonian and its 
editor, Harvey Scott." This great journal and its 
great editor, associated together most of the time for 
over forty years, have indeed constituted one of the 
most potent forces in framing the thoughts and the 
institutions of the Columbia River people. It is fre- 
quently said that Harvey Scott and Henrj^ Watterson 
are the only great American editors yet remaining 
of the old type, the type of a personal intellectual 
force and a public teacher. The present type of 
editor is rather an advertising manager than a polit- 
ical and social leader, a business man rather than a 
generator of ideas. 

There are many additional features of interest in 
and around Portland. Whether viewed artistically, 
commercially, financially, socially, or historically, this 
fair metropolis of the Columbia River Empire is in 
a class by herself. Only by personal acquaintance can 
the student of the West satisfy himself as to Portland. 

But once more we must address ourselves to the 
River. One may go to Astoria by rail down the 
southern bank, or he may, if he prefer, as we cer- 
tainly do, go by water. He ^an go by almost every 
species of boat known to man, from an ocean steam- 
ship to one of the lateen-sailed fishing boats which 
abound on the lower River. 

When we have retraced our course to the mouth 



1 




A Log-boom Down the River for San Francisco. 
Photo, by Woodfield. 



The Lower River and the Ocean Tides 397 

of the Willamette and have again committed ourselves 
to the oceanward flovi^ of the Columbia, we find a 
continuance of the same low, oozy, and verdant 
banks, the same timbered hills on either side in the 
middle distance, and the same dominant snow-peaks 
and unbroken Cascade Range in the farthest back- 
ground. We pass many little towns, whose leading 
occupations are manifestly lumbering and fishing. 
We try to live over again the sensations which we 
think must have been felt by Lewis and Clark or 
Broughton, as they, first of civilised men, lifted the 
veil from this solitude. 

In this section of the River there are no stupendous 
pinnacles as in the Gorge of the Cascades. Yet the 
scener}^ is infinitely varied, and although less bold, 
it is, in its way, equally attractive with the loftier 
scene. One unique spot attracts the eye, and almost 
recalls the beauty of Rooster Rock. This is Mt. 
Coffin, on the Washington side, near the mouth of the 
Cowlitz River. This was one of the " Memaloose " 
or sepulture places of the Indians. There in early 
times their dead, in great numbers, were deposited 
upon platforms after the usual Indian fashion. 

After passing the ingress of the Cowlitz, we find 
the River widening to yet grander proportions. 
Islands become numerous. Among these islands not 
a few desperate affrays and even tragedies have oc- 
curred among warring fishermen, union against non- 
union. Lurking among these islands, too, are 
numerous unlicensed vendors of spirits. In the un- 
certaintj'' as to which of the States may have jurisdic- 
tion at places, these illicit traffickers move from island to 
island and cove to cove and one overhanging forest 



398 The Columbia River 

to another, evading officers of both States and of 
Federal Government alike. Sometime a novelist will 
be mspired with the poetry and humour and tragedy 
and pathos of this fisher life on the lower River with 
Its mmghng of the life of law-breaker and desp^-ado, 
and this section of our River will blossom into litera- 
ture and find a plaee with the moonshiners of the 
South and the cowboys of the Rockies. AH the mate- 
rial IS ready. The River waits only for its Owen 
Wister or Hamhn Garland or Jack London to intro- 
duce It to the world of readers. 

But the River moves and we must move with it 
Many signs indicate to us that we are approaching 
the ocean. If we are moving i„ a small boat, we 
may pause to camp under some one of the thick- 
topped spruce trees whose stiff spicules pierce our 
unwary hands like pins. If we should spend a night 
we would find the water heaving and falling two, four 

grows the River. Numerous salmon canneries and 
seming stations appear. Passing a fishing village on 
the north bank called Brookfield, we notice a very 
curious rock. Pillar Rock, in the River a quarter of 
a mile from shore. It rises forty feet directly out of 
he water. We are told by one versed in Indian lore 
that this IS the transformed body of a chief who tried 
to imitate the god Speelyei by wading across the 
Kiver. For his presumption he was turned into a rock 

sneclT /''■ T'"'"^ ^'""'' ^°* ^' ''' *<^ ™rious 
middle f \l °^-' °" P"'"' apparently right in the 
m.ddle of the River. More curious still, we see 
horses seemingly engaged in drawing a load through 
the very water itself. The mystery is soon solved. 




Chinook Salmon, Weight 80 Pounds. 
Photo, by Woodfield, Astoria. 



The Lower River and the Ocean Tides 399 

The house is built on a sand-bar. It is a seining 
station. The horses are puUing a seine from its 
moorings at the point of the sand-bar to the point 
where its load may be discharged. Lumber, salmon, 
and water, — this is the world in which we now live 
and move and have our being. 

We next enter a broad expanse of the River, nine 
miles wide, on the north side of which is a deep cove. 
There is the historic spot in which Robert Gray on 
May 3, 1792, paused at his highest point to fill his 
water casks and to float the Stars and Stripes over 
Oregon, claimed for the United States of America. 
As we look westward, the headlands seem to part in 
front of us, and between them sky and water join. 
The greatest ocean is before us, though still twenty 
miles away. The River has reached the end of his 
fourteen-hundred-mile journey. Soon we pass, on the 
Oregon side, the bold promontory of Tongue Point, 
and Astoria, the second largest city on the navigable 
waters of the Columbia, is before us. 

To the history of this oldest American town west 
of the Rocky JNIountains we have already referred 
many times. Interesting in so many features of the 
past, Astoria is full of problems and suggestions, 
commercial and otherwise, for the present and the 
future. The city has grown slowly, always wonder- 
ing why Portland should have so outstripped her. 
She certainly has such a location that it seems a 
crime not to utilise it for a great city. The River is 
here five miles wide. Upon its ample flood all the 
navies of the world might ride at anchor, sheltered 
from the sea by the long low sand-ridge of Point 
Adams. The site of the city, though somewhat rugged 



400 The Columbia River 

and broken, is entirely capable of reduction to a con- 
venient grade, and is singularly noble and command- 
ing. From the plateau three hundred feet high upon 
which the splendid waterworks are located, is a view 
of imposing grandeur; — River in front, dense forest 
to rear, with the blue saddle and pinnacled horn of 
Saddle Mountain, — Swallalochost in Indian speech, 
with its thunder-bird of native myth, — and the ocean 
to the west. We find Astoria to be a well-built city 
of about fifteen thousand permanent inhabitants, with 
perhaps five or six thousand more during the height 
of the fishing season. Almost every resource of in- 
dustry offers itself in this favoured region about the 
mouth of the River. Though the country is densely 
timbered in its native state, the soil is such that when 
cleared it is of the finest for dairy and vegetable pur- 
poses. The mildness of the climate keeps the clover 
and grass green and the flowers in bloom the long 
year through. 

As might be expected the chief industries as yet 
developed are lumbering and fishing. There are 
magnificent forests of fir, spruce, cedar, and hemlock, 
in all directions, while in and around Astoria there 
are six immense establishments for transforming the 
timber into merchantable lumber. This lumber aggre- 
gates something like a hundred and twenty million 
feet annually, and it goes to all the ports of the world. 
There is occasionally floated to the bar and thence to 
San Francisco, a log-boom chained in substantial fashion 
and containing several million feet of logs. Such a 
great boom is one of the most curious sights of the 
River-mouth. But transcending all else in import- 
ance at Astoria is the business of canning and drying 




Among the Big Spruce Trees, near Astoria, Oregon. 
Photo, bv Woodfield, Astoria. 



The Lower River and the Ocean Tides 401 

salmon. What silver is to the Coeur d'Alene, what 
wheat is to Walla Walla, what apples are to Hood 
River, that salmon are to Astoria. The people think, 
act, and reason in terms of salmon. And well they 
may. He who has not seen Chinook salmon from 
the Columbia River has not seen fish. Nay, he can- 
not even be said to have really lived in the larger 
sense of the term. Take a genuine Chinook salmon 
of fifty or sixty pounds, caught in June, fat, rich, 
glistening, — but words are a mockery. Nothing but 
the actual experience will convey the impression. The 
salmon output on the River has for some years run from 
two hundred and fifty thousand to five hundred thousand 
cases per year, twenty-four cans to the case. The 
amount dried and smoked represents something like 
an equal amount. This is for the River from Astoria 
to The Dalles. The great bulk of this, however, is 
put up at Astoria or in its immediate vicinity. It is 
estimated that from three million to four milKon 
salmon are caught yearly on the Oregon side of the 
lower River. This represents a value of four or five 
million dollars, about half of this going to the fisher- 
men and half to the cannerymen. Some ten thousand 
men are engaged in fishing about the mouth of the 
River. These men are largely Finns, Russians, Norse- 
men, Italians, Sicilians, and Greeks. They have va- 
rious co-operative associations and are independent of 
the cannerymen, to whom they furnish the fish at 
some stipulated price, usually five cents a pound. 

There are many tragedies at the mouth of the 
River. The best fishing is just off the Bar and the 
best time to draw the nets is at the turn of the tide. 
In a fishing boat in the chill of the early morning. 



402 The Columbia River 

the fishermen will frequently become benumbed and 
drowsy, and will neglect the critical moment. When 
the tide fairly turns on the Bar it runs out like a mill 
race, and woe to the boat that waits too long. It 
goes out to sea, reappearing perhaps, bottom-up, in 
the course of the day, with owners and cargo gone. 
Some experienced men have asserted that not less than 
a hundred fishermen have been lost every summer. 
Many boats are now fitted with gasoline power, and 
loss of life is lessened thereby. 

To the visitor at the River's mouth the fairest sight 
of all in connection with the fishing industry is the 
incoming fleet of boats in the early morning, or the 
outgoing fleet of evening. On a June night it scarcely 
grows really dark at all, and as the faint glow of the 
north turns at two or three o'clock into the morning 
flush, the lateen sails can be seen like a flock of gulls 
on the rim of the ocean. When the full radiance of 
the dawn, with its bars of carmine and saffron, has 
" turned to yellow gold the salt-green streams," the 
fleet is within the outer headlands. Hundreds, some- 
times thousands of them, a regular cloud of them, con- 
verge from all parts of the offing to the wharves of 
lower Astoria. 

With all its benefits the fishing industry brings al- 
most infinite trouble. The two States of Oregon and 
Washington never agree on laws governing the periods 
of lawful fishing. Sometimes Federal authorities bear 
a part in the imbroglio. Gill-net men, seiners, fish- 
trap men, union men, non-union men, local. State, and 
Federal officials, all combine in one great general 
mix-up. In the midst of the confusion the countless 
salmon pursue their course up the River and its 



The Lower River and the Ocean Tides 403 

tributaries in summer, back to the ocean again in 
autumn. The Federal Government maintains fish 
hatcheries on a number of streams, and from them 
young salmon to the number of millions are turned 
out each year to replenish the diminishing supply. 

A great and constantly growing tide of tourists 
from all parts of the Willamette Valley and the upper 
Columbia region go to Astoria during the summer. 
The fine steamers, T. J. Potter, Hassalo, Georgianna, 
and others of less size, convey these thousands of 
tourists to Astoria, while the railroad from Portland 
brings yet other thousands. From Astoria, the North 
Beach is reached by steamer to Ilwaco, and thence 
by rail to all points of the fishhook of land which 
extends from the northern headland of the River 
to the mouth of the Willapa Harbour. During the 
season this beach is almost a continuous city from 
Cape Hancock to Leadbetter Point, twenty miles 
distant. Clatsop Beach on the south side of the 
River is reached by rail from Astoria. Every charm 
that an ocean resort can possess has been lavished 
on these two beaches on either side of the River. 
The bathing, boating, climbing, fishing, hunting, clam- 
ming, crabbing, — they are all there. To the popula- 
tion of that part of the River country east of the 
Cascades, the transition from the dust and heat of 
the summer to the cool and rest and freshness of the 
beach, wdth its breath from six thousand miles of un- 
broken sea, is almost like a change of scenes in a 
play. Both these beaches, especially Clatsop Beach, 
are the location of a rich store of Indian legend and 
romance. " Cheatcos " and " Skookums " haunt the 
forests, and the spirits of Tallapus and Nekahni and 



404 The Columbia River 

Quootshoi have been enthroned on every peak and 
cape. 

All rivers must reach the sea, and all journeys must 
end. And so both our River and our journey find 
their end in the ocean. From Astoria we can see the 
outer headlands and the ocean space between. As 
we survey this merging of the Great River with the 
greater deep, our eyes turn in fancy to that clear, 
bright lake, fourteen hundred miles away in the 
snowy peaks of British Columbia, from which the 
River flows. And in imagination we view again 
the vistas of lagoons and islands, cliffs and glaciers, 
lakes and canons, plains and forests, through which the 
Columbia takes its course, while once more the 
changing scenes of the historical drama associated 
with that splendid waterway are enacted before our 
eyes. 

But now all these scenes and vistas must be left' 
behind, and we must pass between the capes. The 
long sandspit of Point Adams lies on the south, and 
the bold rock-promontory of Cape Hancock on the 
north, seven miles apart, each crowned with a light- 
house. Between them we secure a view of the great 
jetty in course of construction by the Federal Gov- 
ernment. This is one of the most important improve- 
ments in connection with the River. When this work, 
together with the canals and locks above, is com- 
pleted, the River may be regarded as really navigable 
on a large scale. The work on the jetty was inaugu- 
rated soon after the jetty-building by Captain Eads 
at the mouth of the Mississippi River had drawn the 
favourable attention of people and Government to 




> 

QJ B 

o 8 

<D ^ 

^ o 
|-g 
1^ 



The Lower River and the Ocean Tides 405 

this method of deepening river mouths. The jetty- 
consists of a double hne of pihng, filled with rock 
and mattresses of woven willows. This constitutes a 
solid core against which the current of the River on 
one side piles the silt, while on the other the ocean 
waves pound the sand into a permanent barrier-reef. 
The philosophy of it is so to narrow the entrance 
that the accelerated current of the River will scour 
out the channel to an increased depth. Piles have 
been set in place by an ingenious sjj-stem of pneumatic 
pipes by which compressed air bores a hole in the 
sand. Into this hole the pile is dropped, and the sea- 
waves in a moment fill in and tamp the sand around 
it. Thus the ocean is made to fence itself out. 
Upon the jetty a railroad has been built, and a 
train, loaded with rock and willows, runs out on this 
every eleven minutes for dumping material into the 
space between the piles. Very gratifying results have 
already been secured. There is now a depth of 
forty feet on the Bar at low water. The crest of the 
Bar has been cut much deeper at several narrow 
points, and this indicates the progress that may be ex- 
pected. It is hoped that the completed jetty will main- 
tain a permanent channel of forty feet at low water. In 
stormy weather the work on the jetty is difficult and 
dangerous. The impact of the Pacific waves when 
lashed by a sixty-mile "sou'-wester" is something terrific. 
Large sections of piling have been torn out, and much 
loss has resulted. But patience and money triumph 
over all obstacles, and the work goes steadily on. Some 
conception of the magnitude of the commerce to be 
accommodated by this great work may be formed from 



4o6 The Columbia River 

the following summary derived from the U. S. Custom 
House statistics at Astoria, for year 1915: Total num- 
ber of ships from foreign ports entering Columbia 
River, eighty-five, with tonnage of 180,692 tons. Total 
from coastwise ports, 1169, with tonnage of 1,722,157 
tons. Total cleared for foreign ports, 155, with tonnage 
of 290,349 tons. Total cleared for coastwise ports 
1155; of 1,751,815 tons. Total of all ocean Commerce, 
3,473,972 tons. Since lumber and salmon are the lead- 
ing products of the lower River, it is interesting to note 
that the total lumber shipments amounted to 338,673,- 
744 feet, and of salmon there were 11,924 tons. This 
is indeed quite a falling off in commerce for the River 
compared with most recent years. This is due mainly 
to the closing of the Panama Canal and the lack of 
vessels caused by the war. 

We are at the point of the jetty. The buoys 
rise and fall behind us. The horrible blare of the 
fog-horn sounds across the thunder of the surf, as 
we cross the imaginary line from headland to head- 
land. Sea-captains tell us that ten miles from the 
River's mouth — so powerfully does the mighty cur- 
rent cleave the sea — they can dip up fresh water. 
But now, to west and north and south, the deep blue, 
though crossed by the pale green of the River water, 
assures us that we are fairly upon the Bar. The 
River of the West is all behind us. If it be very 
clear, we can just discern upon the horizon's verge, 
cameo-like and glistening white, Mt. Hood, and Mt. 
St. Helens, King and Queen of the Mountains, standing . 
guard over the disappearing River. 

As the shore line grows vague, it would not be 
difficult for the imagination to conjure up the navi- 



The Lower River and the Ocean Tides 407 

gators of the Old World who sailed these seas, then 
unknown seas of mj^stery and romance. Looming up 
through the ocean mists we may see strange ships 
and stranger crews emerge, — junks with Oriental cast- 
aways swept hither by storms and ocean currents; 
caravels with the dauntless sailors of the sixteenth 
century; buccaneers and pirates, a motley flotilla. 
Then the stout crafts of Drake, Behring, Heceta, 
Cook, Malaspina, Valdez, Bodega, Vancouver, La 
Perouse; ships of discoverj'^, of trade, of w^ar, of ad- 
venture, of science; flags of Spain, of Russia, of 
Portugal, of France, of England; — on they throng 
from the hazy Pacific rim toward the Oregon shore. 
And soon we seem to see, circling around them, canoes 
with their red-skinned paddlers from the River's mouth. 
But ships and flags, explorers and natives, fade like 
a dissolving view. In their place appears a gallant 
bark, with banner streaming free. What ship? What 
banner? The Columbia Rediviva, and the Stars and 
Stripes — the flag that still waves over the land of the 
Oregon. 

And now our vessel rises and falls upon the long 
swell of the Pacific. Our journey on the Columbia 
River is ended, and we are upon the open sea. 




CO 



INDEX 



Abernethy, Clark & Co., builders 
of steamers on Columbia, 236 

Abernethy, George, first Provisional 
Governor, 194 

Adams, Mount, origin of, in Indian 
myth, 22-24; elevation of, 368 
caves of, 369; sport in vicinity, 370 
structure of. 371-372; storm on, 374, 
ascent of, 375-376; views from, 376- 
378 

Aguilar, Martin, Spanish explorer, 
44-45 

Ainsworth, J. C, first captain of steamer 
Lot Whitcomh, 235; joins new com- 
pany, 237; skill in running rapids, 
243 

Albatross, ship connected with Winship 
enterprise, 109-11 

American Board of Foreign Missions 
undertakes work for Oregon Indians, 
145 

Applegate, Jesse, disasters of family on 
Columbia River, 174; extract from 
pioneer address, 178 

Armstrong, Capt. F. P., trip on 
Kootenai River 290-291 

Arrow Lakes, steamboat journey on, 
302; scenery of, 303 et seq. 

Arteaga, voyage on the Alaskan 
coast, 55 

Astor, John Jacob, founder of Pacific 
Fur Co., 89; establishes company at 
Astoria, 113; his plans and mistakes, 
115-116 

Astoria, founding of, 120; restored to 
United States, 125, 182; amplitude 
of harbour, 399; scenery of sur- 
roundings, 400; industries of, 400- 
401; fishing fleets, 402; resorts 
adjoining, 403 

Astoria and Columbia River Railroad, 
372 



B 



Bailey Gatzert, steamer on Columbia 

River, 248 
Baker, Dr. D. S., railroad builder, 

373-374 
Baker, D. S., the steamer, running 

the Dalles, 243 
Balch, Frederick, his story. The Bridge 

of the Gods, 22 
Bancroft, H. H., discussion of loss 

of Tonquin, 203 
Banff, attraction as a resort, 284 
Bannock Indian War, 233 
Barlow, S. K., building road across 

Cascade Mountains, 176 
Barrell, Joseph, originator of fur 

company at Boston, 102 
Bassett, W. F., first gold discovery in 

Idaho, 253 
Bateaux, description of, 134 
Baughman, Capt., pilot on Columbia 

and Snake Rivers, 241 
Beaver, vessel of the Pacific Fur Com- 
pany, 123-124 
Beaver, first steamship on Columbia 

River, 235 
Beers, Alanson, members of Executiv^e 

Committee of Provisional Govern- 
ment, 194 
"Beeswax Ship," story of, 41-42 
Behring, Vitus, explorations on Pacific 

Coast, 50-51 
Belcher, Sir Edward, expedition to 

Columbia River, 164 
Belle, steamer on Columbia River, 

236 
Benton, Thomas H., expressions in 

regard to Oregon, 187; special 

advocate for Oregon, 197 
Bishop, B. B., steamboat builder on 

Columbia River, 235 
Blakeney, Capt., in charge of steamer 

Isabel on Upper Columbia, 288 



409 



4IO 



Index 



Blalock, Dr. N. G., connection with 

; large enterprises, 338 

Blanchet, Rev. F. N., book on Catholic 

Missions, 154; journey to Oregon, 

155; locates in Willamette Valley, 155* 

Blanchet, Rev. Magloire, Catholic 

Mission at Walla Walla, 157 
Boas, Dr. Franz, investigator of 
Indian legends, 35 

Bodega, first voyage, 51; later voyage, 
55 

Bonneville, Capt. E. L. E., organises 
trading company, 161; makes ex- 
plorations on Columbia River, 162; 
meets Washington Irving, 162 

Bradford, Daniel, steamboat building 
on Columbia River, 235 

Bradford & Co., steamboat line on 
Columbia River, 236 

Broughton, Lieut. W. R., in command 
of the _ Chatham, 62; entrance of 
Columbia River and exploration, 
66-67; erroneous statements, 67-68 

Buchanan, James, course in regard 
to boundary of Oregon, 199 

Bullfinch, account of American fur- 
trade, 101 

Burnett, Peter, speech to immigrants, 
1G9; governor of California, 170; 
opinion in regard to Provisional 
Government, 195 



Cabinet Rapids, 331 

Cabrillo, navigator on coast of Cali- 
fornia, 43 

Calhoun, John C, attitude on Oregon 
question, 186; peculiar situation of. 
198-199 

Cameahwait, chief of Shoshone 
Indians, meeting with Lewis and 
Clark party, 77; finding Sacajawea, 
78 

Canadian boatmen, their skill and 
gayety, 132-133 

Canadian Pacific Railroad, route of, 
over Rocky Mts., 284; over Selkirks, 
295-296; excellence of management, 
298; steamboats on lakes, 302 

Canadian Rockies, character of, and 
steepness of descent, 285 

Canoes, 133 

Cape Horn, 359 

Carolina, steamer crossing Columbia 
Bar, 235 

Cascades, a dividing line, 350; historic 
and physical interest of, 350; locks. 



351; first notice of tide, 351; fish- 
wheels and spearmen, 352 

Cascade Mountains, general descrip- 
tion, 12-13; the great peaks, 13-14- 
valleys on east side, 14; valleys on 
west side, 15-16; cleft by Columbia 
River, 343 

Cass, Senator, speech in regard to 
Oregon, 199 

Castle Rock, unique appearance, 353; 
ascents of, 354; cave and arrowheads, 
356 

Catlin, George, account of Indians 
who sought "Book of Life," 138 

Cayuse War, beginning,210; ending, 212 

Celiast, Indian woman, 34 

Celilo Canal, 272 

Champoeg, meetings for Provisional 
Government, 192-193 

Chelan Lake, type of Columbian lakes, 
308; first appearance, 309; glacial 
origin, 310; depth of canon, 310; 
comparison with other scenes, 310- 
311; storms on, 311-312; sunset on. 
313 

Chemeketa, the Indian council ground, 

142 
Chinook wind, legend of, 24-27 
Chittenden, Major H. M., book on 

American fur-trade, 203 
Choteau, Pierre and Auguste, founding 

of St. Louis, 108 
Christian Advocate, account of Indians 

looking for "Book of Life," 137 
Clark, William, lieutenant of exploring 
party, 73; Indians think him "medi- 
cine man," 82; Indians looking for 
"Book of Life," 136-137 
Clarke, Gen. N. S., in command of 

Columbia, 224 
Clatsop Plains, favourite resort of 

Indians, 34 
Clay, Henry, attitude on Oregon 

question, 186 

Coe, Capt. Lawrence, building steamer 

Colonel Wright, 235; account of first 

- trip on upper Columbia and Snake 

Rivers, 243-244 

Coeur d'Alene, Lake, as a resort, 307; 

its mines, 308 
Colleges founded as result of missions. 

157 
Colonel Wright, the steamer, on upper 
Columbia, 235; makes first trip on 
upper rivers, 243-244 
Columbia Basin, forces that wrought 
It, 6-7; general description, 10-15; 
climate, 17-18 



Index 



411 



Columbia River, many names, 3; early 
attracts attention, 4; connection 
with Kootenai River, 11; tomauowas 
bridge, 21; damming at Cascades, 
21-22; discovery by Heceta, 55; 
discovered and named by Robert 
Gray, 64; results of discovery, 65; 
first navigation by Lewis and Clark 
party, 82; falls passed by party, 83; 
submerged forests, 84; descent by 
Lewis and Clark, 84-85; first sight 
by Hunt's party, 95; Totiquin on 
Bar, 117; forts on, 129-131; crossing 
of Bar by the ship, L'ltifatigablc, 
156; descent by immigrants of 1843, 
172-174; description of Bar by 
Provost, 184; massacres upon, by 
Indians, 221; steamboat business, 
239 et seq.; first steamboats on lower 
part, 235; on upper part, 243; 
railroads along, 261-262; navigability 
of, 266; prospective traffic of, 267- 
269; channel improvement, 270 et seq.; 
opening of Celilo Canal celebrated, 
272; improvements at mouth, 273; 
Interstate Bridge across, at Van- 
couver, 279-280; character a' ove 
Golden, 288 et seq.; character below 
Golden, 295; lakes of, 301 et seq.; 
from Robson to Kettle Falls, 306; 
from Kettle Falls to Wenatchee, 308; 
rapids and shores from Wenatchee to 
Pasco, 331; irrigating enterprises, 
333-334; between Pasco and The 
Dalles, 338-339; canal, 340; section 
beginning at The Dalles, 344-346; 
peculiar character at Cascades, 349; 
tomanowas bridge, 350; compared 
with other scenes, 360; appearance 
below Rooster Rock, 384; between 
Portland and the ocean, 397-399; 
farewell to, 406 
Columbia River Navigation Co., 237 
Columbia Scenic Highway, 271, 274- 

279 
Columbia, the steamer, on River, 235 
Condon, Professor Thomas, geological 

theories, 5 
Cook, Capt. James, journey on Oregon 

coast, 55; death, 56 
Cortereal, Caspar, Straits of Anian, 43 
Coxe, account of fur- trade, 100 
Coyote, god, fight with Kamiah 

monster, 19-21 
Coyote Head, 347 

Crooks, Ramsay, partner of Pacific 
Pur Co., 89; hard experience with 
Indians, 96 



CuUiby Lake, 42 

Cultee, Charley, Indian story teller, 35 
Curry, Governor, calling for volunteers, 
221 



D 



Dalles, The, historical interest of, 340; 
varied resources of, 340-341; scenery, 
341 

Day, John, treatment by Indians and 
death. 96-97 

Dayton, Congressman, expressions 
about Oregon, 187 

Dawson, Professor, explanation of 
sources of Columbia, 288 

De Haro at Nootka, 55 

De May in battle of Pine Creek, 227 

Demers, Rev. Modest, missionary to 
Indians, 155 

De Smet, Rev. Pierre J., books on 
Catholic missions, 154; in Northern 
Idaho, 155; in Europe for reinforce- 
ments, 156; crossing Bar, 156 

Disoway, G. P., account of Indians 
who sought "Book of Life," 137 

Dixon, figures on profits of fur-trade, 
102 

Donation Land Law attracts immi- 
gration, 177 

Dorion, Madame, desperate situation 
in Blue Mountains, 126 

Drake, Francis, explorations, 44 



E 



Eagle, steamer above Cascades, 235; 
rescuing victims of Indian war, 236 

Edwards, Rev. P. L., associate mission- 
ary, 141 

Eells, Rev. Cushing, missionary to 
Oregon Indians, 151; locating at 
Tshimakain, 152 

Elliott, S. G., first railroad surveys, 259 

England, diflBculty with Spain over 
Nootka Sound, 62 



Farnham, T. J., in command of Peoria 
party, 164; history of Oregon and 
California, 164 

Ferrelo, explorations on the coast, 43 

Field, mountain resort, 286 

Fiske, Wilbur, leading missionary move- 
ments, 140 

Florida Treaty with Spain, 184 

Fonte, extravagant stories, 46 



412 



Index 



Fort Clatsop built by Lewis and Clark, 
85 

France, assistance to American colonies 
50 

Franchere, Gabriel, history of Pacific 
J^ur Co., 118; founding of Astoria, 
lieo; account of destruction of To7i- 
quin, 203 

Fuca, Juan de, 44 

Fur-trade, beginnings, 56-57; on Oregon 
coast, 60-61; connection with dis- 
coveries, 89; historical importance, 
yy; iinancial profits of, 103 



H 



G 



Gale, Joseph, building of Star of 
Oregon, 166; sails to California, 167; 
on Executive Committee of Pro- 
visional Government, 194 

Gale, William, on ship Albatross, 109; 
extract from journal, 113 

Galiano, voyage around Vancouver 
Island, 55 

Garnett, Major, in Yakima War, 

Gaston, Lieutenant, in battle of Pine 

Creek, 226 
Gervais, Joseph, location in Oregon 

142 
Ghent, Treaty of, 182 
Gilliam, Cornehus, in Cayuse War, 

Glacier, Canadian resort, 296-297 

Glacier Lake, 320 

Glacier Peak, 321 

Golden on Columbia River, 287 

Grande Ronde Valley, first view bv 

Hunt Party, 94 
Grant, Captain, attempting to keep 

back American immigration, 171 
Gray, Capt. Robert, in command of 
Lady Washington, 60; as a fur- 
trader, 61; discovers Columbia River 
64 ' 

Gray, W. H., history of Oregon, 147; 
characteristics, 149; four sons, 149; 
estimate of population, 188; in 
Provisional Government, 190-191; 
steamboat enterprises, 241; adventure 
on Snake River, 241 
Gray Capt Wm. P., story of ascent 
of bnake River, 241; trip down Snake 
River, 247 
Great Britain, claims to Oregon, 180- 



Halhaltlossot, or Lawyer, 151 
HallakaUakeen (Joseph), summer camp. 

Hard winter of 1861, 257 

Hassalo, the steamer, 235-237 

Hassalo, No. 2, 248 

Hathaway Felix, building schooner, 

btar of Oregon, 166 
Heceta, first voyage, 51; discovery of 

Columbia River, 52-54 
Henry, Andrew, trading post on Snake 

River, 108-109 
Hickey, Capt. F., at restoration of 

Astoria, 125 
Highway, Columbia Scenic, 271 274- 

Hill David, on Executive Committee 
Tin V^'^^^^""^* Government, 194 
Hill, J. J., railroad builder, 262 
Holladay Ben, president of Oregon 

Central Railroad, 259 
Holmes. Oliver W., quotation, 285 
Hood Mount, origin of, in Indian 
myth, 22-24; first appearance of. 
If'' ^f ^^f ;?°' 364; approach to, 
364; Cloud Cap Inn, 365; view from 
366; historic character of view, 367; 
appearance from La Camas, 386 
Hood River and Valley, appearance 

and productions of, 238 
Howard, General O. O., in Nez Perce 
War of 1877, 230; description of 
Joseph, 231 
Hudson's Bay Company, organisation 
ot, 104; joined with Northwestern 
5 Co., 107; forts, 128 et seq.; boats 
and boatmen, 131-134; policy to- 
ward Americans, 150-153; attitude 
toward Provisional Government, 192 
195; treatment of Dr. McLoughlin,' 

H"?t' Wilson P., forms land division 
of Pacific Fur Co., 89; leader in 
journey, 92 et seq. 



Idaho, name of, 32; reached by Lewis 
and Clark, 79-81; first steamboat, < 

^35; gold discoveries, 252 et seq • ^ 
university, 325; irrigation systems^ 

Illecillewaet River, 297 

Immigration of 1843, beginnings, 168; 
at Fort Hall, 171; constructing flat- 
boats on Columbia, 173; disasters on 



Index 



413 



Immigration — Continued 

River, 174-175; succoured by Dr. 

McLoughlin, 176; settlement in 

Willamette Valley, 176 
Indians, sad history, 18; myths, 19 

et seq.; names, 31-32; traders in furs, 

103 
Indians', the three Nez Perce, quest 

for the "Book of Life," 139 
Indian War of 1855, beginning, 219; 

battle at Walla Walla, 221; unsatis- 
factory end, 224 
Indian War of 1858, 225 et seq. 
Inland Empire, origin, 6; general 

description, 14 
Intelligencer, National, expressions in 

regard to Oregon, 187 
Interstate Bridge across Columbia, 

279-280 
Irving, Washington, author of Astoria, 

113 



Jason P. Flint, steamer on Columbia, 

235 
JefiFerson, Thomas, connection with 

Pacific Coast, 69-70; organisation of 

Lewis and Clark expedition, 72-73; 

instructions to party, 74 
Jenny Clark, steamer on Willamette, 

236 
Jetty, at mouth of River, construction, 

405; prospective results, 406 
Joint Occupation Treaty, 134 
Joseph, Indian chief, in Walla Walla 

council, 217-218 
Joseph (Hallakallakeen), in great war 

of 1877, 229; captured, 231; later life 

and character, 232 
Joseph War of 1877, 229 et seq. 



Kamiah monster, myth of, 19-21 
Kamiakin, Yakima chief, 213; at 

Walla Walla Council, 214; conspiracy 

to kill Governor Stevens, 216; 

description of, by Stevens, 216; 

breaking up of treaties, 218; new 

force of warriors, 220; apparent 

success, 224 
Kamm, Jacob, engineer on steamer 

Lot Whitcomb, 235 
Keith, J., at restoration of Astoria, 125 
Kelley, Hall J., home and character, 

159; expedition to California and 



Oregon, 160; return to New England, 
161 

Kelley, Col. J. K., in battle of the 
Walla Walla, 221 

Kendrick, Capt. John, in command of 
the Columbia Rediviva, 60; in fur- 
trade, 61 

Kennewick, 227 

Kettle Falls, historic interest, 306 

Kicking Horse River (Wapta), origin 
of name, 287 

Kilbourne, Ralph, builder of Star of 
Oregon, 166 

Kimooenim River, or Snake River, 
first view by Lewis and Clark party, 
81 

Kip, Lieutenant, account of Walla 
Walla Council, 214-215 

Klickitat Indians, legends, 28-30; 
atrocities of, at Cascades, 221 

Kobaiway, Indian chief, 35 

Konapee, story of, 37-39 

Kooskooskie River, discovered by the 
Lewis and Clark party, 79; naviga- 
tion on, by Lewis and Clark party, 81 

Kootenai River, character of navi- 
gation, 290-291; Bonnington Falls 
of, 304 

Kootenai Lake, description of, 305-306; 
sporting on, 306 



La Camas, paper mill, 385 

Ladd, Carrie, steamer on Willamette, 
236 

Lamazee, or Lamazu, brings news of 
destruction of Tonquin, 123 

Lark, wreck of, 124 

Lausanne, Methodist mission ship, 142 

Lawyer, Indian chief favourable to 
whites, 214-216 

Le Breton, G. W., part in founding 
Provisional Government, 192 

Ledyard, John, connection with JefiFer- 
son, 70; comprehension of fur-trade, 
101 

Lee, Rev. Daniel, missionary to In- 
dians, 141; mission at The Dalles, 
142 

Lee, Rev. Jason, missionary to Indians, 
140; locating mission at Chemawa, 
142; in the East for reinforcements, 
142; death, 143; connection with 
Ewing Young, 144; memorial to 
Congress, 144; influence, 145; lec- 
tiu-e at Peoria, 163; chairman of 
meeting of settlers, 189 



414 



Index 



Lewis and Clark expedition, its incep- 
tion by Jefferson, 71; summary by 
Captain Lewis, 87; mention of, by 
Jefferson, 88 

Lewis, Jo, part in Whitman massacre, 
206 

Lewis, Meriwether, selection by Jeffer- 
son for leader of party, 72; descrip- 
tion of crossing Divide, 75 

Lewiston, founding of, 245 

Linn Senator, presenting memorials to 
Congress, 189; his death, 197 

Lisa, Manuel, organises the Missouri 
Fur Company, 108 

Looking Glass, famous speech, 215 

Lot Wkitcomb, the steamer, on Columbia 
River, 235 

Louise, Lake, beauties of, 284 

Louisiana Purchase, significance, 71 



M 



Macbeth, Miss Kate, opinion about 
Indians, who looked for "Book of 
Life," 136-137i 

Mackenzie, Alexander, expedition to 
Pacific Coast, 71; journey to the 
Arctic Ocean, 106; reaches Pacific 
Ocean, 106 

McBean, Wm., account of Walla Walla 
Council, 217 

McCellan, Robert, partner of Pacific 
Fur Company, 89 

McClellan, Geo. B., assists Stevens in re- 
connaissance for Pacific Railroad 260, 

McDougall, Duncan, smallpox bottle, 
122; marries daughter of Comcomly, 
122; sells out Company, 124 

McKay, Dr. W. C, physician at 
Pendleton, 329 

McKenzie, Donald, partner of Pacific 
Fur Company, 89; leads division of 
party, 92; sells out Company, 124 

McKinley, Allen, building of steamer 
on Columbia, 235 

McLoughlin, Dr. John, as factor of 
Hudson's Bay Company, 130; re- 
ception of Methodist missionaries, 
141; meets the Whitman party of 
missionaries, 150; connection with 
building Star of Oregon, 166; sees 
approaching success of Americans 
167; stories connecting him with 
Americans, 168; account of Provis- 
ional Government, 195; becomes an 
American citizen, 196; land troubles, 
196; sadness of old age, 196; sum- 
mary of character, 197 



Maldonado, extravagant stories, 46; 

map, 48 
Maquinna, Indian chief, 202 
Martinez, voyage on coast of Oregon, 55 
Mary, steamer on Upper Columbia, 

235; rescues victims of Indian war, 

236; on her regular route, 237 
Mazama Club, influence of, 363 
Meares, Capt. John, English explorer, 

44; voyages to Oregon Coast, 58; 

at mouth of Columbia, 59-60 
Meek, Jo, part in founding Provisional 

Government, 192 
Memaloose Island, 347 
Miller, Joseph, partner of Pacific Fur 

Company, 89 
Minto, John, account of founding of 

Provisional Government, 190 
Montcachabe, Indian who first crossed 

the continent, 70 
Moody, Mary, steamer, first steamer 

on Pend Oreille Lake, 245 
Moody, Z. F., builds steamer, 245 
Moorehouse, Major Lee, Indian photo- 
grapher, 330 
Morigeau, Baptiste, pioneer on Lake 

Windermere, 293 
Moscow, site of University of Idaho, 

325 
Moses, Indian chief, 307 
Mountain Buck, steamer on Columbia, 

236 
Mountaineers' Club, purpose and loca- 
tion, 363 
Mowry, Wm., report of speech by Nez 

Perce Indian, 139 
Multnomah, steamer on Columbia, 236 
Multnomah Falls, 358 
Multnomah, meaning of, 31 



N 



Nekahni, Mt., location of, 33; beauty 
of, 39; the "treasure ship," 40-41 

Nelson, metropolis of the Kootenai, 
304; fruit industries of, 304; mines of, 
305; transportation of, 305 

Nesmith, J. W., extract on immigration 
of 1843, 169; account of Indian guide, 
Sticcus, 172; in Indian War of 1855, 
221 

Nez Perce Indians, origin of, 21; first 
meeting with Lewis and Clark party, 
80; looking for "Book of Life, " 137 

Nootka Sound, discovery of, 51; 
important centre, 55; as a cause of 
dispute between England and Spain, 
62 



Index 



415 



North Bank Railroad, 262; cost of, 
387; bridge, 387 

North-west Fur Company, organisa- 
tion, 105; unites with Hudson's Bay 
Company, 107, 128; in possession of 
Columbia Basin, 125 







Oak Point founded by Winship brothers, 

110 
Ogden, Peter Skeen, ransoms survivors 

of Whitman massacre, 207 
Okanogan, the steamer, first to run 

Tumwater Falls, 242 
Okanogan Indians, story of, 294-295 
Oneonta Gorge, 357 
Oregon, name of, 31 
Oregon Question, its complicated and 

momentous character, 200 
Oregon Railroad and Navigation Co. 

organised, 246 
Oregon Short Line Railroad, 262 
Oregon Steam Navigation Co. organised, 

237; development of business, 238; 

its portages, 238; sells out, 246 
Oregon Transportation Co. organised, 

237 
Oregonian, newspaper, influence of, 396 
Osborne, Mr., escape from Whitman 

massacre, 207 



Pacific Fur Co., organisation of, 89; 

its dissolution, 125 
Paha Cliffs, 346 
Pakenham, British envoy, and his 

course in regard to Oregon, 199-200 
Pambrun, Pierre, instructed Indians 

in Catholic faith, 137 
Parker, Rev. Samuel, in Oregon to 

investigate condition of Indians, 145; 

his traits, 146; book, 146 
Pasco, lands around, 336; prospects of 

337 
Patriot, Illinois, report of the Indians 

looking for "Book of Life," 137 
Peacock, ship of Wilkes Expedition 

lost on Columbia Bar, 165 
Pearce, E. D., connection with dis- 
covery of gold in Idaho, 252 
Pearson, express rider, rides to notify 

Stevens of Great Yakima War, 219- 

220 
Pendleton, its industries and some of its 

citizens, 329-330 



Peoria party of immigrants, 163 

Perez, voyage of, 51 

Perkins, Rev. H. K. W., mission at 
The Dalles, 142 

Peupeumoxmox, Indian chief in war 
of 1855, 213; leads force to Walla 
Walla, 214; killed, 221 

Polk, President, management of Oregon 
Question, 199-200 

Poppleton, Irene Lincoln, article in 
Oregon Historical Quarterly, 237 

Portland developed by discovery of 
gold in California, 251; location, 391; 
transportation facilities, 392; com- 
merce, 392-393; buildings, 394; artis- 
tic character of, 395; Historical 
Society, 395-396 

Potter, T. J., steamer on Columbia, 248 

Priest Rapids, character of, 332; origin 
of name, 332; power for pumping, 
334 

Provisional Government, origin of, 
190-192; organisation of, 193; oflScers 
of, 194; state house for, 194 

Provost, J. B., at restoration of Astoria, 
125; agent of United States for 
receiving Astoria from Great Britain, 
182; describes Columbia Bar, 182- 
183 

Pullman, site of State College, 325 



R 



Raccoon, British man-of-war at Astoria, 
124 

Railroad Creek, scenery about, 319- 
320 

Rainier, Mt., origin of name, 32 

Rector, Wm., road across Cascade 
Mountains, 176 

Re velstoke, character as a junction, 302 

Rock Island Rapids, 331 

Roosevelt, Theodore, view of Cal- 
houn's policy in regard to Oregon, 
198; reference to Columbia River, 
246 

Rooster Rock, appearance of, 359- 
360; River below, 385 

Rosalia, monument of Steptoe, 325 

Ross, Alexander, adventure in Yakima 
country, 126-127; narration of pro- 
fits in fur-trade, 131; on blowing up 
of Tonquin, 203 

Ruckle and Olmstead put steamer on 
Columbia, 236 

Russia, entrance upon American ex- 
ploration, 50-51 



4i6 



Index 



Sacajawea, with Lewis and Clark 
party, 75; sees the whale, 85; finds 
her brother, Cameahwait, 78 

St. Helens, Mt., origin of, in Indian 
myth, 22-24 

St. Joe River, its beauties, 307 

St. Peter's Dome, 356 

Salmon River, Lewis and Clark party 
at the head of, 79 

Saltese, Coeur d'Alene chief, 226 

San Jose, ship connected with Indian 
story, 42 

Scott, Harvey, character and influence 
as an editor, 396 

Sea-otter, importance in the fur-trade, 
100 

Senorita, steamer on Columbia, 236 

Shakspere, his location of Caliban and 
Ariel in the Far West, 47 

Shaw, Col. B. F., battle of Grande 
Ronde, 222 

Shepard, Rev. Cyrus, missionary to 

^^ Indians, 141 

Sheridan, battle at Cascades, 22 

Shipbuilding, new era of, 280 

Shoshone Indians, meeting with Lewis 
and Clark party, 76-78 

Shuswap Indians, story of, 294-295 

Sierra Nevada, the steamship, its cargo 
of treasure, 239 

Simpson, S. L., extract from poem of, 
390 

Smith, Rev. A. B., minister to Oregon 
Indians, 151; at Kamiah, 152 

Smith, J. C, connection with gold 
mines in Idaho, 253 

Smith, Jedediah, American trapper 
thought to have taught religion to 
Indians, 137 

Smith, William, mate on Albatross, 109 

Snake River, Hunt party on, 91 et seq.; 
orchards of, 326; heat, 327; irrigation 
systems of, 327; Shoshone Falls of, 
327 

Snickster, adventure in Steptoe ex- 
pedition, 228 

Snow-peaks, general group of, 363; 
zones of, 380-382 

Sowles, Capt. Cornelius, character of 
116 

Spain, connection with Oregon ex- 
ploration, 48; downfall, 48-49; settle- 
ment of California, 49; favouring 
conditions for exploration, 50; con- 
flict with England over Nootka, 62; 
character of claims to Oregon, 180 



Spalding, Rev. H. H., in Oregon as 
missionary, 147; his traits of charac- 
ter, 148; among Nez Perces, 151; 
first printing press west of Rocky 
Mountains, 152 

Spalding, Mrs. H. H., characteristics, 148 

Speelyei, Indian god, struggle with 
Wishpoosh, 8-9; creates Indian 
tribes, 9 

Spencer, Ckas. D., steamer on Columbia, 
248 

Spokane, remarkable character as a 
city, 325; water power of Falls, 325; 
grandeur as spectacle, 325; railway 
system, 326 

Spokane House, location of, 325 

Spotted Eagle, remarkable speech, 223 

Star of Oregon, schooner built on 
Willamette River, 166; trip to San 
Francisco, 167 

Stark, Benjamin, in steamboat business, 
236 

Statesman, Washington, extracts in re- 
gard to Idaho mines, 255-256 

Stehekin River, canon of, 313; Rainbow 
Falls of, 315; Horseshoe Basin of, 316 

Steptoe, Col. E. J., dissension with 
Stevens, 223; fort at Walla Walla, 
224; disastrous expedition to Spokane, 
225 et seq. 

Stevens, Hazard, account of Walla 
Walla Council, 215 

Stevens, I. I., appointed Governor of 
Washington, 213; makes treatise, 
213; Council at Walla Walla, 214; 
goes to northern country to make 
treaties, 215; describes Kamiakin, 
216; makes treaty with Flatheads, 
218; returns to Olympia, 221; or- 
ganises volunteers, 222; second Coun- 
cil at, Walla Walla, 222; trouble with 
Steptoe, 223; trouble with Wool, 224; 
battle at Walla Walla, 224; recon- 
naissance for railroad in 1853, 260 

Sticcus, Indian guide of immigrants, 
172; tries to save the Whitman 
Mission, 206 

Stuart, David, founding of Fort 
Okanogan, 121 

Stump, Capt. T. J., on first steamer 
down Tumwater Falls, 242 

Sturgis, profits of fur-trade, 103 

Sutter, Captain, connection with dis- 
covery of gold, 250 

Swallalochost, Mt., 33, 400 

Swan, data on income of furs, 103 

Swift, Jonathan, placing of Gulliver 
near the coast of Oregon, 47 



Index 



417 



"Takhoma Mt., " origin of name, 32 

Tallapus, Indian deity, 33 

Tamahas, part in Whitman massacre, 
206, 212 

Tamsaky, in Whitman massacre, 206; 
killed, 212 

Taylor, Captain, part in battle of 
Pine Creek, 226 

Telankait, part in Whitman massacre, 
206 

Tenino, the steamer, value of its busi- 
ness, 239 

Tetons, Three, first seen by Hunt party, 
81 

Thompson, David, crossing the con- 
tinent, 106; at Astoria, 121; remains 
of his fort on Lake Windermere, 
292 

Thompson, R. R., builds steamer 
Colonel Wright, 235 

Thorn, Jonathan, disposition as cap- 
tain of Tonquin, 116; tyrannical 
course in entering Columbia River, 
117-118 

Thornton, J. Quinn, description of 
Oregon State House, 194 

Timothy, Nez Perce Indian guide to 
Steptoe's command, save command, 
226-227 

Tonquin, fitting out for Astoria, 117; 
entrance of Columbia River, 118-119; 
destroyed by Indians, 124; account of 
capture, 203 

Touchet Valley, adaptability to 
orchards, 335 

Trappers, two general classes of, 90 

Treaty with England in regard to 
Oregon, 200 

Trevett, Vic, tomb of, 347 

Troup, Capt. James, skill in running 
rapids, 242; on D. S. Baker over The 
Dalles, 243 



U 



Umatilla Plains first seen by the Hunt 

expedition, 94 
Umatilla Rapids, singular character of, 

338 
Union Transportation Co. organised, 

237 
United States, character of claims to 

Oregon, 181; notifies Great Britain 

to regain Astoria, 182 



Valdez, circumnavigation of Van- 

couverlsland, 55 
Vancouver, <:apt. George, as English 

exZatbn^ ''' equipment 'tr 

C:iumbT;Bar\r'' ^^^^' ''' -* 

Vancouver Island location of imnort 
ant explorations, «6_57 import- 

Vancouver, Fort k I-.- 

Vancouver, citv of Yt • • 
.386; scenery, 387 ^*^"^ '°*«^^«t' 
yY>^>-e, the steamer, v^-w^ J 

•-^cades, 236 "(rarned over 

Veren«r^.e^ first European t^ 
vJ^'^^V^^^u^tains, 70^ *° ^°*"'" 

^.^«l>at^^- a^ste'rf^'S?'^ ^'-• 

'Txparr^-^^SpaJish^etof 

Von Hit. opinion in regard tn r . 
houn managemenf f^^l^ \9 Cal- 
matt(I98 ^^^""^^t of the Oregon 



w 

Walker, 3v. Elkanah ,v,- • 

Oreg.ndian I5i\t T'sr^r -*° 
151 ' ^^ ^snimakain. 

Walker Prairie, location f n 
chur(J25 vocation of first 

3|S^i:E;^^^/-;-who 

^anl'sInVr^^^^^'byin^^i. 

^S- 'J''''' *^'^*«"^ mature of 
ox», ;arance and o,.,... j- * 

Wallul 

Wapatand, first seen by Lewi, 

-d party, 86; descrip^tion Tf! 
Waptf 287 
IFa.co ,er built on Columbia 

230 s victims of Indian ^S: 

wfshis:;e"'S™'"*''f 

velosSfw ^^'^^."^es of de- 



4i8 



Index 



Washington Territory "ea^ed by 
Congress, 212; volunteers for Indian 

War, 222 ..,,<■ s«/5 

Washougal, historic interest a. ^^ 
Webster! Daniel, attitude -° O^-eg"^ 

question, 186-187; indned to yield 

to England, 197 
WehatpoUtan, story of,^^^ irrlcraled 
Wenatchee, interest -ts an irngaLed 

wESmb.'kbui'is steamer of san.e 

wl^'^^'r^nriw. commands steamer 

^SLe?fF;i on trip up Cojvt^f^ 

243-244; Ijjnches steamer torty-n 

on Colum'ia, 245 ^g 

White Saln^n ^1^^^ ^ JtrSe vpon 
Whitman,Dr. Marcus, enU^c p 

work ^or Off ^^^^^^ATs eturn 
P0P;l-f\-f£?4rSarS;. and 

reti^nlo Oregon If^^SS^Tgon 

and cliaracter l^^^.^^^ongayuses 
across continent, 1^1^ a J,j.^ 

151; conception of jal^ue^^^g^ 
l''\,^T54"Us"inise.migra- 

171; connection ^ith ^Jv ,„„X^ 
lin,'l96; doctors Indians fcieasles, 

205; assassinated, 20b 
Whitman, Mrs. Nams^a, ^^^ 

and qualities. If ' ^f^OS 
Whitman massacre |06 20» 

Whitman CoUege 329 ^^_ 

Whitman County, agn 
wXrUeutxtL., assists lipping 

ret lerSShes if unity 



of Pacific Coast, 165; advice to 
settlers about a government, 190 

Willamette River, scenery around 
mouth, 388; tributaries and Valley, 
390; apostrophe to, by S. L. Simpson, 
390 

Willamette Valley, general view, 15 

Willamette University grows out of 
mission to Indians, 143 

Williams in the Steptoe retreat, 228 

Windermere Lake, 290 

VVinship brothers, project for trading 
company on Columbia River, 109- 
113 

Wishpoosh, the Reaver, Indian legend, 
8 

Wool, Gen. J. E., discord with Stevens, 
222, 224 

Wright, Colonel, campaign against 
Spokane Indians, 225, 229 

Wyeth, Nathaniel, takes Methodist 
missionary party across continent in 
1834, 141; commendation by Lovv'ell, 
162; plans great enterprise on Colum- 
bia, 162; builds fort at mouth of 
Willamette, 163; attracts attention to 
Oregon, 163 



Yakima Valley, productive capacity of, 

335 
Yaktana, Indian chief in adventure with 

Ross, 127 
Young, Ewing, in California, 160; 

drives cattle to Oregon, 161; death 

of, 189 



Zaltieri, map of America, 47 



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